Vigilante violence on trial
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 21 October 2021
⏱️ ? minutes
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Summary
Ahmaud Arbery’s killing changed his Georgia community. Now, as the state grapples with a judicial legacy shaped by racism, three White men stand trial for murder.
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This week, the trial began for Greg McMichael, his son Travis McMichael and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan. It hinges in part on Georgia’s citizen’s arrest law, which helped codify White vigilante violence for 150 years. The law was repealed in May 2021, but its legacy reverberates today.
Margaret Coker, editor of nonprofit investigative outlet The Current, is reporting on the trial for The Washington Post. She shares her insights on the decades-old law that has its roots in the Civil War, and how it might be used as a defense in the murder trial.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | On a sunny February day last year, a 25-year-old man named Amad Arbery decided to go for a |
| 0:09.5 | jog. |
| 0:11.1 | Margaret Coker has spent a lot of time thinking about that day. |
| 0:14.4 | She's the editor of an investigative news outlet in Georgia. |
| 0:17.1 | He had actually put a load of laundry into the washer. |
| 0:20.3 | He had put together a plate of leftovers and was going to have it for lunch when he came |
| 0:25.4 | back from his run, but he didn't have a chance to do that. |
| 0:30.9 | Arbery was black. |
| 0:32.4 | His jog took him through a part of town that was mostly white, and three men saw him running. |
| 0:37.9 | They grabbed their guns and what happened next was captured on cell phone footage that |
| 0:42.1 | went viral last year. |
| 0:43.8 | Three white men are in vehicles chasing down a man. |
| 0:47.9 | They are not law enforcement. |
| 0:49.1 | They never identified themselves as that, but they kept shouting for him to stop. |
| 0:53.5 | Arbery was unarmed. |
| 0:55.1 | He had not committed a crime, but Greg McMichael is a son Travis McMichael and their neighbor |
| 1:00.5 | William Bryan, who are all white. |
| 1:03.1 | They say they thought that he was stealing. |
| 1:05.3 | They pursued him. |
| 1:06.3 | Then there's several shots fired. |
| 1:08.2 | Amad Arbery falls to the ground and he is fatally wounded and dies. |
| 1:14.3 | This week, the trial began for those three men. |
... |
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