3:00 p.m., October 17, 2021
It is from Monday in Brunswick that a trial under high tension should begin. The old South and its demons, in a state of Georgia still steeped in racism. The city was burnt to the ground and destroyed as the Union army approached during the Civil War. That is to say. The Whites and the Blacks in an eternal face-to-face. What will the jurors decide in the case of the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, pursued then shot by a father and his son while a third sidekick filmed the scene? The whole country will this week have its eyes riveted on this story, which takes on an explosive political dimension. The case dates only a few weeks before the murder of George Floyd and this explains why it was completely concealed afterwards. But with this trial which begins, it is indeed the same springs of racism that will be dissected.
On February 23, 2020, around 1 p.m., Ahmaud Arbery, 25, decides to go for his usual jogging. We are in a neighborhood of Brunswick, on the east coast of Georgia. Standing in front of his garden, Gregory McMichael takes for granted that the jogger has to be a thief. He calls his son Travis and the tandem jumps into the family pickup. They are armed with a 357 Magnum, a shotgun and set off in pursuit of the young man. After catching up with him and after a few moments of futile struggle, three shots are fired. A third man, William Roddie Bryan, 52, a neighbor who has joined this ancient manhunt, holds up his phone and films the entire scene. Everything is there, in this video which ends up disappearing.
In total, four prosecutors followed one another before the case was heard
“This story has remained in the shadows for over seventy days,” said S. Lee Merritt, 38, the lawyer defending the Arbery family. For two reasons: There is the disappearance of a video, well sure, but there is also the context, the South, a historically racist region where the segregation and ideology of white supremacists still prevail, not only in a certain population but also at the heart of the judicial system. justice system which did everything to ensure that these men who committed murder were not prosecuted, including being careful not to divulge a vital element of the investigation. “
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It is Gregory McMichael himself who will divulge it, thinking thus to show his good faith on the course of the events. Jackie Johnson is the first magistrate to be removed from the case for conflict of interest. The former police officer had indeed worked for her as an investigator. The second prosecutor, George Barnhill, considers that the evidence is insufficient and refuses to indict the three men. In total, four prosecutors followed one another before the case was heard. The trio will not be arrested until May 5, 2020. After the video has been broadcast, each protagonist is indicted for nine counts, including intentional homicide.
Monday will begin the selection of jurors
Joe Biden, then in the presidential campaign, intervenes in the debate and tweets: “Ahmaud Arbery was murdered in cold blood. It is time for a swift, full and transparent investigation of this murder.”
Today Georgia is on alert. As we speak with Robert Rubin, lawyer for Travis McMichael, anti-racism protests are taking place in Brunswick. “It just goes to show how delicate this case is,” he said. “This case goes far beyond simple murder. It is part of a whole dialectic that is being heard in the United States at the moment on the race question. And I don’t think racism has anything to do with this trial. “
But a divided America, an uninhibited word make this trial once again emblematic. “I have faith in our system,” continues Robert Rubin, “and I want everyone to do their job without a second thought. As much as I hate to lose, if the truth comes out of this trial, I will already be happy.”
Monday will begin the selection of jurors. The first of the fights. “I care about the impartiality of the jurors, explains Robert Rubin, who defends Travis McMichael, the son of the former police officer. It is impossible to escape this story, they will necessarily have read or heard something, and the press presents things in a biased way. ” In Camp Arbery, we fear exactly the same thing, but in reverse. “It would be really worrying if the jury were all white, fears S. Lee Merritt, civil rights lawyer. Georgia is not Minnesota. There, the verdict for Derek Chauvin was possible because it was ‘was a progressive enclave, and that’s not the case here. What will play out again this time is where we really stand on racial prejudice. “
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