Ahmaud Arbery’s 3 Killers Now Face Federal Hate Crime Charges from DOJ

On Wednesday, the three men who were previously charged in the gruesome killing of Ahmaud Arbery last year in the state of Georgia were indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of hate crimes and attempted kidnapping.

Arbery, 25, had been jogging in a neighborhood in Brunswick on Feb. 23, 2020, when Travis McMichael, 35, and his father, Gregory McMichael, 65, began pursuing him in their pickup truck before shooting him dead with a pump-action shotgun.

William “Roddie” Bryan,” 51, had been driving behind them in a separate truck and filming the incident. According to Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent Richard Dial, McMichael then stood over Arbery’s lifeless body and called him a “f**king [n-word].” In separate footage, a Confederate flag sticker could be seen attached to the McMichaels’ truck.

Video of the incident didn’t come to light until it was leaked by a retired police officer who said that he wanted “the public to know the truth” about the slaying of the young Black man, according to his attorney.

The Department of Justice alleged Wednesday that the men confronted and ultimately killed Arbery “because of his race.”

The killing of Arbery by the apparent vigilantes sparked outrage internationally and across the country, with many saying that it shows the suspicion and violent racism often faced by Black joggers

The McMichaels were also each charged with “carrying, and brandishing—and in Travis’s case, discharging—a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence,” noted the DOJ press release.