father and son sentenced to life for murder of young black jogger

In Brunswick, in the state of Georgia (United States), Ahmaud Arbery’s family left the court welcoming the exemplary verdict. “I never doubted. I knew that day would come”said Wanda Cooper-Jones, mother of Ahmaud Arbery. “Today your son is making history because people have been convicted of lynching a black man in the United States”, for his part proclaimed Ben Crump, the lawyer for the family of Ahmaud Arbery. The author of the shots, Travis McMichael, 35 years old, and his father Gregory, 66 years old, were sentenced to life imprisonment, without the possibility of early release for the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, who was 25 years old.

“He was killed because the individuals here applied their own law”, said Judge Timothy Walmsley. On February 23, 2020, Gregory McMichael, Police retiree and his son were driving around their neighborhood in their pickup when they spotted Ahmaud Arbery jogging, who had stopped to observe a house under construction. Finding him suspect, they then decide on a citizen’s arrest. Ahmaud Arbery, who tried to take over, was hunted down before a fight broke out. Travis McMichael then fired three times, with a shotgun. The scene was filmed by a neighbor, also condemned.