Washington: Three White People who were convicted of killing African African Jogger Africa Ahmaud Arber after chasing him in a pickup truck they were sentenced to life in Friday prison in a case highlighting racial tension.
Travis McMichael, 35, and his father Gregory McMichael, 66, was sentenced to lifetime without parole, while their neighbors, William “Roddie” Bryan, 52, who has a less direct role in murder and cooperating with investigators, given life with possibilities parole.
The three were punished in November from various charges of murder, attacks of false violence and imprisonment to pursue the 25-year-old Arbery on February 23, 2020 when he ran through their Satilla Shores neighborhood near Brunswick, in the State of Georgia US.
Say the sentence, Georgia Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley calls the murder “a tragedy in many, many levels.” Considering his verdict, Walmsley said he kept thinking about “the young man’s terror ran through the Satilla beach.” “He left his house apparently to run and he finally ran for the rest of his life,” Walmsley said.
“He was killed because individuals here in the courtroom took the law into their own hands.” Before punishment, Arbery’s family member asked the court to give three most likely penalties.
“They each do not regret and do not deserve silent relief,” said his mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones.
“This is not the wrong case of identity …
they choose to target my child because they don’t want it in their community.” “The man who killed my son was sitting in this courtroom every day next to his father.
I will never get the chance to sit next to my child again, not at the dining table, not on holidays, and not at the wedding,” his father said Marcus Arbery.
Graphic cellphone videos taken by Bryan showed armed men after Arber in their truck for about five minutes, suspecting without proof that he might be a thief.
Arber repeatedly tried to avoid it, but was blocked by a truck and then shot and killed by Travis McMichael.
They claimed they were trying to make “arrest citizens”, who were legal in Georgia at that time.
But the white jury mostly rejected the argument.
Prosecutor Linda Dunikoski called their actions “Vigilantism.” “Vigilantism is always wrong,” he said on Friday.
The investigation of the original incident was stopped by local law enforcement for three months to the video leaking, triggering national anger.
The local prosecutor Jackie Johnson has been charged for breaking his oath and allegedly blocking the investigation into Arbery’s death.