Almost two years to the day of when Ahmaud Arbery was gunned down in the street while jogging in Georgia, a jury has found the three men convicted of his murder as also being guilty of federal hate crimes.
Arbery’s family said justice was delivered when the men were found guilty in federal court Tuesday for pursuing him out of racial animus. Ahmaud’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, said that the hate crime trial showed the world what was going through the minds of the killers when they murdered her son, and what kind of people they really were.
The three men are all white. Travis McMichael and his father Gretory McMichael, and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan, pursued Arbery, a Black man before Travis shot Arbery with a shotgun. Arbery was out for a job when the defendants got into their trucks to chase him down, and then, murder him. Roddie recorded the whole thing on his phone.
The three were convicted on a hate crime charge of interference of rights, as well as an attempted kidnapping. The McMichaels also were convicted of gun charges.
Prosecutors focused on detailing how the defendants spoke privately about Black people, as well as how they spoke publicly. They used racist slurs, derogatory language, inflammatory language, and even described wanting to commit violence. Arbery was killed because he was Black, prosecutors emphasized, and they did not see him as a fellow human being.
The three were convicted in November on murder charges in a state court. The McMichaels got life sentences without parole. Bryan got a life sentence with the possibility of parole.
Now that they have been convicted of hate crimes, the three men could also now get up to life in prison once again, as well as steep fines. The sentencing will be scheduled following the filing of presentencing reports.
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