‘I just effing killed somebody’: Ahmaud Arbery murder trial begins with graphic video of crime scene
Jurors heard officers testify about arriving to the scene, and watched body camera and cell phone video
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Video was a key factor on day one in the murder trial of the trio accused of killing Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year old Black man gunned down in February 2020 by a group of white men in a pickup truck as he jogged through a neighbourhood near Brunswick, Georgia.
Jurors watched police body camera that showed officers arrive as one of the men accused in the murder, Travis Michael, was sitting near by as Mr Arbery lay in a pool of blood.
The officer, Glynn County policeman William Duggan, said he went to ask the man if he was OK.
“I could see he was covered in blood,” Mr Duggan said. “There was blood all over, and I remember at some point asking if he was OK.”
“No I’m not OK,” the man said, according to Duggan. “I just effing killed somebody.”
The tone in his voice was akin to someone who had just mistakenly harmed a child in a car accident, the officer said.
Mr Duggan added that he knew Mr Arbery wouldn’t survive by the time he arrived, with a "gaping wound on his chest so I saw there was nothing I could do for him.”
All three men — Gregory McMichael, his son Travis McMichael, and William “Roddie” Bryan Jr — have pleaded not guilty, and their attorneys sought to keep the footage out of the trial.
Friday’s proceedings also featured cell phone video of the shooting, and Judge Timothy R Walmsley warned spectators that they could leave the courtroom before the graphic footage played, prompting some of Mr Arbery’s family to step out.
The young man’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, however, remained in the courtroom, later telling reporters outside the court that it was the first time she had seen the full video.
"I have avoided the video for the last 18 months ... I was glad I was able to stay strong and stay in there," she said, adding that it was time to become more “familiar with what happened to Ahmaud — the last minutes of his life”.
The McMichaels and their neighbour Mr Bryan have claimed they were attempting to carry out a citizen’s arrest of Mr Arbery when he was shot dead, because they believed he was responsible for burglaries in the area, though prosecutors argued during opening statements that the men in fact knew Mr Arbery wasn’t a thief, noting that Gregory McMichael told investigators, “I don’t think the guy has actually stolen anything out of there.”
The court also heard that the three men were chasing him for five minutes in their pickup trucks with Gregory McMichael telling police they had him “trapped like a rat”.
Mr Arbery was “under attack by strangers who were intent to kill him”, said prosecutor Linda Dunikoski.
Mr Arbery was jogging through the Satilla Shores neighbourhood on 23 February 2020 when the McMichaels grabbed guns and jumped in their pickup truck to chase him.
Their neighbour Mr Bryan also joined in the pursuit, following in his pickup truck and filming the incident on his smartphone.
The footage captured Travis McMichael shooting Mr Arbery three times with his shotgun.
Mr Arbery collapsed to the ground where he died.
The three defendants all face nine charges, including malice murder, four counts of felony murder, two counts of aggravated assault, false imprisonment, and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment. They have all pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The defence has argued that the Georgia community where Mr Arbery was killed had been “on edge” following a spike in crime and that the Black jogger appeared to be “suspicious”, saying that Travis McMichale was acting out of “duty and responsibility” to his local community when he shot Mr Arbery dead.
He said Travis McMichael had come “face-to-face” with Mr Arbery 12 days earlier on 11 February when he said the 25-year-old was breaking into a home under construction in the neighbourhood.
On that occasion, the defence claimed Mr Arbery put his hand into his pocket which Travis McMichael had taken as a sign he could have been armed.
The defence said that this led Travis McMichael to fear that Mr Arbery may be armed on the day of his shooting.
Mr Arbery, whose killing became one of a number of rallying cries during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, was unarmed at the time of his death.