In the killing of the black jogger by two white men Gregory McMichael and his son Travis that was captured on video, the role of he videographer William Bryan, Jr. was always suspicious. Clearly he was not a mere passerby who happened to have filmed it with a dashcam. He seemed to be following Arbery. He then said he had given the video to the police and local prosecutors who, despite the damning nature of the killing shown on it, did not charge the two men with the murder and indeed did nothing for two months, until the video was leaked to a local media outlet, apparently by Bryan. Bryan was reported to live in the same area and the McMichaels and they knew each other. It was all very murky but highly suspicious
But after the outcry following the release of the video, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, a state office, took over the case and the two McMichaels were arrested and charged with murder. Then today comes news that Bryan has also been charged with “felony murder and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment”. The second charge stems from the belief that Bryan’s role was to box in Arbery from the back so that he was trapped and had no way to escape. That would explain why Bryan was driving slowly following Arbery.
The GBI is also investigating the local police and prosecutors offices for their handling of the case and their quick dismissal of any case against the McMichaels, the elder of whom had worked as police officer in that area for 20 years and was known to the local prosecutors.
This morning NPR had a report on this story in which lawyers for Bryan say that he was just a witness and had no relationship to the McMichaels, while lawyers for the McMichaels said that more video of the incident exists that will come out in court. One wonders who else might have been in a position to take video.
The astonishing thing is that the guy thought the video would exonerate the murderers.
The southerners always did like to photograph a lynching.
I’ll be a dollar against a bottlecap that everyone involved never gets sent to prison. The witnesses will screw up, the crime lab will screw up, there will be a procedural mistake by the DA and they’ll get off on appeal after the news cycle is over.
Marcus @2: It is even simpler than that. The jury of mostly white people will never convict them.
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It is totally absurd that the McMichael pair are claiming self-defense. They blocked the road and threatened Arbery with weapons when they were not in any danger had they stayed the fuck at home. What they obviously did not anticipate (stupidly) was that Arbery would simply run around their truck. That they fired the weapons at a man out for a morning jog should be enough to convict them of committing terror upon an individual and the community. Unfortunately, Arbery was a black man. I would be surprised if the McMichael pair or Bryan get convicted. If the DOJ was worth a damn, they would charge them with federal hate crimes and not allow the local yokels to acquit them.
But but but but…he looked at a construction site! And then started (resumed) running away! If that doesn’t justify what they did, why they might as well just let people shoot people on 5th Ave.! /s
In the video you can also hear him messing with a gun.
FWIW, from a Google search, it appears that the consensus is that his first name was AHmaud Arbery, not ARmaud Arbrey.
Let’s at least spell the poor guy’s name right.