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Georgia shooting case gets new prosecutor, again

by Rachel Lynn Aldrich
Posted 5/12/20, 11:41 am

The newest members of the team investigating the shooting death of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery bring with them additional staff and more questions about how Glynn County, Ga., law enforcement handled the case. A father and son, who are white, shot and killed Arbery, an African American, on Feb. 23 in a subdivision near Brunswick, Ga. Gregory McMichael and his son Travis McMichael told police they confronted Arbery because he matched the description of a suspect in a local burglary. Arbery’s relatives said he was jogging when the suspects racially profiled, pursued, and killed him. On Monday, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr asked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to look into possible misconduct by local prosecutors who first handled the case. Carr also appointed Cobb County District Attorney Joyette M. Holmes to lead the prosecution of the McMichaels, whom police arrested last week on murder charges after a video surfaced of the shooting.

Why does the case keep changing hands? Gregory McMichael is a former Glynn County police officer and worked for 20 years as an investigator for the local district attorney’s office before retiring a year ago. The Glynn County district attorney and the first outside prosecutor left the case because of professional relationships with McMichael. Carr said the most recent prosecutor, Tom Durden, asked him to give the case to someone with a larger staff. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution released a second video from a surveillance camera that shows someone who appears to be Arbery walking into a home under construction in the subdivision. The Arbery family’s lawyers say the second video supports their argument that he did nothing wrong.

Dig deeper: Read Mickey McLean’s report in The Sift about the release of the first video and what it showed.

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Rachel Lynn Aldrich

Rachel is an assistant editor for WORLD Digital. Follow Rachel on Twitter @Rachel_Lynn_A.

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  • SAWGUNNER
    Posted: Tue, 05/12/2020 05:57 pm

    Legally if a house is "under construction" you cannot burglarize it. Allegedly the house in question on the video had no doors yet installed on it. 

     

  • OldMike
    Posted: Wed, 05/13/2020 11:06 pm

    There hasn't been any evidence that I know of that Arbery took anything. I've walked into houses under construction myself, just to see the layout or look at the construction methods. 

    Maybe the house itself can't be "burglarized," but it is still theft to take items, whether it would be building supplies or a contractor's equipment. 
     

  • Cyborg3's picture
    Cyborg3
    Posted: Tue, 05/19/2020 02:16 am

    But if there is evidence that Arbery took something then would this throw the whole investigation into a new light? We need to let all the evidence come forward before we jump to conclusions.  A really sad case would be where the two men thought they had a thief, attempted to arrest the black man, where he was shot when he fought back.  Should they get the death penalty then? 

  • Deb O's picture
    Deb O
    Posted: Fri, 05/15/2020 12:08 pm

    They should have never pursued him. The ex-cop destroyed three lives, one of whom he pronounced guilty without a trial. No excuse.

  • RC
    Posted: Mon, 06/01/2020 03:04 pm

    In another article it said the McMichael’s apparently had a gun stolen from one of their cars. I would say because Gregory was an ex-cop, he knew he had a conflict of interest. He knew better but went ahead and took the law into his own hands.  Sure looks like the McMichael’s were on a personal vendetta to punish whoever stole their gun and Arbery was the victim of their lynch mob mentality.   

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