Tangle - The killing of Ahmaud Arbery.

Episode Date: November 23, 2021

On Monday, closing arguments began in the trial of his killers, and are expected to end on Tuesday before the jury begins deliberations. Arbery's case is the third in a series of politically and racially charged murder/homicide cases that rocked the nation last year to go to trial — the murder of George Floyd, the Kyle Rittenhouse shooting, and now the Arbery trial.You can read today's newsletter here.Our newsletter is written by Isaac Saul, edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.The podcast is edited by Trevor Eichhorn, and music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, a place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I am your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we are going to be talking about the Ahmaud Arbery trial. I'm going to turn to jury deliberations expected to begin in the trial of the three men accused of killing Ahmaud Arbery. The case against three Georgia men accused in the death of Ahmaud Arbery hinges on one primary question. Does their self-defense argument justify shooting a man they suspected of trespassing or theft?

Now to another high-profile trial, a murder trial over the death of Ahmaud Arbery. This is a big case, obviously, similar to the Kyle Rittenhouse case, one that a lot of people are watching, and also similar to that requires quite a bit of background knowledge and information. So we are going to be focusing solely on this case today. We'll be skipping a few of our normal sections, like the story that matters and the reader question section and the number section. But that's just to make sure we don't take up too much of your time in this single podcast or newsletter.

As always, though, before we jump in, we'll start with some quick hits. First up, the United States announced a plan to release 50 million barrels of oil from its strategic reserve as part of a global plan to help reduce the cost of energy and gas. Number two, the Department of Justice settled with the survivors and families of the Parkland school shooting for $130 million over charges it failed to properly respond to tips about the shooter. Number three, a suspect in the Wisconsin Christmas Parade crash has been charged with five counts of intentional homicide. He was apparently fleeing a domestic dispute. Number four, Roger Stone and Alex Jones were subpoenaed by the Congressional Committee investigating the January 6 6 riots at the Capitol.

Number five, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen was freed yesterday after three years in prison. All right, so that is it for our quick hits for the day, which brings us to our main story. On Monday, closing arguments began in the trial surrounding the death of Ahmaud Arbery. On Tuesday, those closing arguments are expected to end and the jury will begin deliberating. Arbery's case is the third one in a series of politically and racially charged murder and homicide cases that rocked the nation last year. The murder of George Floyd, the Kyle Rittenhouse shooting, and now the Arbery trial. The people involved in the trial are Ahmaud Arbery, a former high school football player

who had dropped out of college and spent his early 20s trying to pursue different careers. He was living with his mother and was known by friends for staying in great shape. Arbery suffered from a mental illness that caused him to have auditory hallucinations. Gregory McMichael, 65, is a former Glynn County police officer and worked as an investigator for the local district attorney's office. Travis McMichael, 35, was Gregory's son and a machinery technician for the U.S. Coast Guard where he spent nine years. William Roddy Bryan, 52, was the man who filmed the encounter from a trailing car, though he is accused of attempting to detain Arbery as well. All three men are being charged with felony murder and malice murder, two counts of aggravated assault, and one count of false

imprisonment and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment. Each murder charge could result in a life sentence. Aggravated assault carries a maximum sentence of 20 years and false imprisonment is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. If the defendants are convicted on multiple counts, they will be sentenced on the most serious charge. All right, so before we jump in, let's just review the initial story here. Ahmaud Arbery was running in Satilla Shores when Gregory McMichael saw him go by from his front porch. He thought Arbery looked like a man suspected in several break-ins in the neighborhood. McMichael yelled for his son, who grabbed a.357 Magnum handgun and a shotgun, and the two got into their pickup truck and gave

chase. William Bryan, their neighbor, saw the men going after Arbery, then got into his car and began to follow them. The McMichaels repeatedly yelled for Arbery to stop, according to their claims in a police report. Then they pulled their car up past Arbery, and Travis McMichael got out of the truck to try and stop him. Gregory McMichael told police that the then unidentified man, who was Ahmaud Arbery, violently attacked his son in an attempt to grab his shotgun, at which point Travis shot Arbery. Later, a 911 dispatch call surfaced from moments before the McMichaels gave chase and was made public. In it, a neighbor who saw Arbery inside a house that was under construction

had reported him to police. Shortly after the shooting, a series of prosecutors and district attorneys recused themselves from the case because of their prior relationships with Gregory McMichael, a former cop. First was prosecutor Jackie Johnson, whom McMichael called for advice immediately after the shooting. Then George E. Barnhill, the district attorney in Waycross, Georgia, stepped down as well, although he argued in a letter that the three men should not be arrested and were within their rights under Georgia's open carry laws and its citizen arrest laws. Those laws say a private person may arrest an offender if the offense is committed in his presence or within his immediate knowledge. Barnhill argued that they thought Arbery was

committing a burglary. Two months later, after no arrests had taken place, a video surfaced of the incident which was taken by William Bryan, the neighbor following behind the men in his car. The half-minute-long cell phone footage shows Arbery jogging down the street with the McMichaels in a parked pickup truck in front of him. Gregory McMichael is standing in the bed of his truck with a handgun

and Travis McMichael is standing outside the driver's side door with a shotgun. Arbery jogs around the truck as the cell phone drops below the dashboard then re-emerges in front of the truck amid shouting in a struggle with Travis McMichael where the men are wrestling over his shotgun. Three gun blasts can be heard then Arbery tries to run away before staggering and falling to the ground. The video immediately went viral causing a national storm of protests and prompted the arrest of all three men. Not long after, another video emerged, this one a surveillance video showing Arbery inside the home that was under construction. In the video, Arbery looks around briefly and then leaves the house, jogging away. He is not seen stealing anything or committing any federal crimes inside

the home. The prosecutor for the Brunswick Judicial Circuit, Jackie Johnson, who initially recused herself, has now been charged for not immediately arresting Travis McMichael. She was voted out of her job and now faces charges of violating her oath for showing favor and affection to Gregory McMichael, as well as obstruction charges for telling two police officers not to arrest Travis on the day of the shooting. Georgia has also since reformed its citizen's arrest law, which the McMichaels are citing in court to defend their actions. Arbery's family, friends, and lawyer have maintained that he was out getting exercise in the neighborhood and was likely just going for a jog when he stopped and briefly explored

the under-construction home. No evidence has emerged of Arbery committing any robberies. Arbery's supporters have compared the day's actions to a modern lynching because he was chased down, cornered, and then killed by white men. During the trial, the McMichaels have argued that the neighborhood had been on edge from a series of robberies that had taken place, including theft of equipment stolen from a house under construction. On one night, Travis Mc of equipment stolen from a house under construction. On one night, Travis McMichael said he approached a man creeping through the shadows of the neighborhood but retreated when the man reached into his pocket, making him believe the man was armed. Nobody ever spoke to that man again, but the McMichaels argued it contributed to their

state of mind at the time they pursued Arbery. On the day of the chase, Travis McMichael says his father came into the house and told him, quote, The McMichaels argued that they simply tried to stop Arbery so he could be questioned by police, and their lawyer says Arbery was seen on surveillance footage multiple times in the same house. Travis McMichael testified that they made at least two attempts to talk to Arbery, who did not speak to him, and took off running when Travis mentioned the police were coming. There was, quote, no evidence that Ahmaud Arbery ever jogged or exercised in Satilla Shores,

the McMichael's lawyer argued. Arbery didn't try to defuse the situation by talking to the men or running away from them through a yard during the five-minute chase, the McMichael's lawyer added. He also argued that the former police officer was just looking out for his neighborhood, certain that Arbery was the same man on previously seen surveillance footage. A good neighborhood is always policing itself, the McMichael's lawyer argued. The police can't be everywhere, and in a safe, secure neighborhood, police are helped by those neighbors. Once Arbery tried to wrestle away Travis's gun, the defense says it became an act of self-defense. Arbery's lawyer, meanwhile, argued that the men made rash decisions, assuming Arbery had committed a crime which they had no proof of,

and then killed him because he refused to stop and talk to them. While Arbery was seen walking around the house on surveillance footage, he was never seen taking or damaging anything. Arbery was seen walking around the house on surveillance footage, he was never seen taking or damaging anything. The three men had no immediate knowledge of a crime, which is a prerequisite for a citizen's arrest. They only assumed he was a criminal because he was a black man running through the neighborhood. Arbery's lawyer argued the men can't claim self-defense because they initiated the interaction, were unjustified aggressors, and chase Arbery with weapons. Who brought the shotgun to the party, she asked. While citizens arrest laws allow people to stop a crime from happening, Arbery's lawyers argued that they had no confirmation of any such crime in this case and still don't. Once they

chased Arbery and trapped him with their guns out, it was Arbery who felt his life was in danger and acted in self-defense. Meanwhile, action outside the courtroom has been the topic of conversation too. Black Lives Matter protesters and armed members of the Black Panthers have been outside the courtroom, including with a casket with the defendant's name on it. Kevin Bowe, the defense attorney for Bryan who filmed the encounter, requested a mistrial. The motion was denied. Bowe has also unsuccessfully tried to sever Brian from the McMichaels, saying he did not realize the men were armed when he joined them in the chase. Body camera footage from the incident revealed Brian saying he was more than just a witness

telling police at one point that he blocked Arbery during the chase. A big portion of this case is going to come down to the citizen's arrest law in Georgia. The law, quote, allowed a private person to arrest someone if that person witnessed or was told about a crime or if someone suspected of committing a felony was trying to escape, according to the New York Times. Civil rights advocates have long criticized these laws, arguing they were used to justify hundreds of arrests and lynchings of black people in Georgia between 1882 and 1968. Immediately after the shooting, Bryan told police that Travis McMichael used a racial slur to describe Arbery after killing him, and one of the trucks the defendants were in had a Confederate flag vanity plate. During trial, a detective read a transcript of a conversation with

the elder McMichael immediately after the shooting, in which McMichael says, I don't think the guy has actually stolen anything out of there, or if he did, it was early in this process. He also did not claim he was attempting a citizen's arrest and did not cite any specific crime Arbery could be arrested for, according to the prosecution. Below, we're going to take a look at some arguments from the left and the right, and up is what the left is saying. The left says the killing was provoked by the defendants who pursued and trapped Arbery and who still have no evidence he committed any crime. They also say it's another incident of a young black man being assumed to be a criminal and the defendants have told inconsistent stories about what they knew. It's the same abominable story we've heard too many times before, Kathleen Parker said in the Washington Post. This time, however, Ahmaud Arbery was killed by citizen vigilantes rather than by cops.

The local police department said there had been only one reported burglary in the neighborhood for seven weeks before the shooting, and although I've never been a burglar, I don't imagine that if I were, I'd go jogging midday to review my work and begin plotting my next caper. Arbery was killed at 1 p.m. on a Sunday. We can't know what went through Arbery's mind in those final desperate moments, but let's borrow a page from John Grisham's A Time to Kill and Reverse Rolls, she wrote. Imagine you're a white man jogging on a Sunday afternoon when two black men in a pickup truck, one with a shotgun, stop and interrogate you and say they'll blow your head off if you don't stop,

while a friend of theirs waits at the end of the street. What would you do? Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada,

which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at FluCellVax.ca.

Paul Butler said the nearly all-white jury is a huge injustice. Now a jury has been selected, he wrote. Paul Butler said the nearly all-white jury is a huge injustice. Now a jury has been selected, he wrote, 11 white people and one African-American plus four white alternates. Travis McMichael's lawyer pronounced himself very pleased, adding that members of the defense team truly believe the jury will decide the case in keeping with what we all understand justice to be about. There is only one black juror because the defense removed 11 of the 12 black prospective jurors and Judge Timothy Walmsley let them get away with it. During jury selection in a criminal trial, after the judge has found that potential jurors are qualified to sit on the case, the prosecution and defense each get a number of peremptory strikes they can use to remove jurors for virtually any reason. That's except race and gender. After the defense team struck

all but one of the black potential jurors, prosecutors demanded the judge intervene. The judge said Wednesday that there appeared to be intentional discrimination by the defense team lawyers, but that their reasons for removing the prospective jurors who were black were, quote, race neutral. If you have a hard time understanding how both those findings could be true, don't worry. It doesn't make any sense. In Vox, Fabiola Sinia said it's a reminder of why we need to abolish citizen's arrest. Every state has some version of a citizen's arrest law, though they are very based on the type of crime and whether the citizen must witness the crime directly or just be aware that it happened. In many states, the laws are unclear about how long a citizen is permitted to detain someone,

how much probable cause is necessary, and how much force can be used. In Alabama, for example, a private person can make a citizen's arrest where a felony has been committed, even if they didn't witness it and when they have reasonable cause to believe that the person arrested committed it. The law specifies that the arrest can be made on any day at any time, outlines the steps that must be taken for a legal arrest and gives citizens permission to break open doors or windows to capture the alleged offender.

All right, that's it for what the left is saying, and that brings us to the right's take. So the right has argued that Arbery was a victim, but there are legitimate questions about the role race played in the shooting. They also say the media has overemphasized race and is not exploring some holes in Arbery's story, and the case is nothing like Rittenhouse's trial, despite many on the left comparing the two. In the National Review, Andrew McCarthy said the men made a legal assumption, not a racial assumption, but that they were wrong either way. Even if the men knew that Arbery matched the description of a man depicted in the surveillance

videos, and even if they believed he was acting suspiciously, they had not seen him commit a crime and they had no real evidence that he had done so, McCarthy wrote. There was no legal basis to detain him, much less make a citizen's arrest under state law. There was no basis to use force against Arbery, much less lethal force. The three defendants' conduct amounted to murder and other crimes because their suspicions and perceptions did not amount to legal cause. Yet state prosecutors have not proven or even charged that the three white men killed Arbery because he was black, McCarthy wrote. As summations in the Georgia trial commence this week, you are to be forgiven if, as with just completed Wisconsin trial in which Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted, you have distorted understanding of what happened in the case thanks to press coverage. It is always reported that the accused are white and Arbery is black.

We are also told that the McMichaels and Bryan are charged with what is called malice murder. This state law term is rarely explained, so it would be understandable for you to suppose that malice must refer to racial prejudice. Malice murder, however, has nothing to do with race or indeed with bias of any kind. Under Georgia law, it is simply the unlawful causing of another person's death with malice afterthought. Madeline Kearns argued that the case has been compared to Rittenhouse's, but it's nothing like it. A recent New York Times story compares the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse with that of Ahmaud Arbery's killers, asserting that they are strikingly similar stories. Men took up the guns in the name of protecting the public when they wound up killing unarmed people they claim self

defense. This comparison is superficial and misleading, Kern said. True, the defendants in both trials are claiming self-defense, and one could also argue that the defendants share a penchant for vigilantism, albeit of a different kind. Nevertheless, the details playing out before the trial's respective juries reveal many more differences than similarities. Perhaps the most crucial distinction is that Rittenhouse, a lone 17-year-old, fatally shot men who were chasing and assaulting him, Kern said, whereas Gregory McMichael and his son Travis McMichael fatally shot a man whom they were chasing, a man to whom they gave no means of escape, trapping him between vehicles with the assistance of their accomplice William Bryan. Arbery's killers were already pointing guns at

him at the critical moment when Arbery lunged at Travis McMichael. If anyone had a claim to self-defense in such an instance, it was surely Arbery. In American Greatness, Christopher Roach argued that the media story can't be trusted. First, the initial prosecutor on the case, before the national media outcry, offered a detailed justification for his decision not to prosecute, Roach said. Second, giving credence to the robbery theory, Arbery has a felony criminal record for bringing a gun to a high school football game and later a probation violation for shoplifting. He was said to have been seen by one of the suspects days earlier casing the neighborhood. Third, Arbery may have been confined involuntarily for mental health reasons, as the DA letter mentions.

The video shows him without hesitation attacking one of the men who were blocking his way. No media reports have followed up on this interesting tidbit. Finally, while Arbery is indeed running on the video, was he actually just a jogger out in the neighborhood? He was wearing what appears to be long jean shorts and high top basketball shoes, not exactly jogging attire. All right, this all brings us to my take here. Look, this all seems pretty cut and dried to me. The McMichaels, I think, are guilty of murder. The only question in my mind really is whether William Bryan,

the man who is trailing and filming the scene, is also guilty. Let's remember something fundamental here. Despite the unfortunate headline of this podcast, Ahmaud Arbery isn't on trial. The men who shot him are. The fundamental question is whether they had legal grounds to initiate a citizen's arrest in the first place, and none of the men has established that they did. They have only established that they saw a black man running down the street and assumed he just got done committing a crime. The man who owned the home in question, the one under construction, testified he did not know of anything ever being

taken from the construction site, that he never asked the McMichaels to confront anyone on his site, and that he'd seen other people, including a white couple, exploring the property as well. He'd only once reported something stolen from his property, but it wasn't from the construction site. He'd only once reported something stolen from his property, but it wasn't from the construction site. The initial police accounts after the shooting are also damning. Brian, the man who was filming this entire encounter, told police that Travis McMichael called Arbery an effing n-word while he was lying on the ground dying. Gregory McMichael referred to Arbery as an asshole to police,

despite never having met him or spoke to him before that day. Again, as he lay dead on the street 30 feet from him. Gregory had also told police he instructed Arbery to stop or quote, I'll blow your fucking head off while following him down the street, which Travis later testified he never heard his dad say. Travis also told police he couldn't say for sure if Arbery grabbed his gun during their scuffle. Text messages and social media posts showed Travis regularly using racial slurs and the men had a confederate flag vanity plate on the pickup truck they chased Arbery in. So I'm sorry, but yes, this case is about race. If we can't acknowledge someone is a racist who throws around the n-word to describe black people

even in the moments after shooting a black man three times and drives around with a confederate flag vanity plate then i don't really know who we can call a racist of course travis mcmichael denies using the n-word to describe arbery and the only witness is brian but brian had absolutely no motivation in the moments after the fact to lie about such an event to the police. Travis's own social media posts and texts make it pretty clear he was comfortable using the word regularly. The reason the prosecution has focused so little on race, meanwhile, is that they probably assume it's a losing strategy. 11 of the 12 jurors are white, and this is despite Brunswick County being majority black. There's no need to try to convince the jury that the two men are racist and risk turning the trial into a case about race when the only legal question here is whether the men

had reasonable cause to grab their guns and chase Arbery down the street, which the evidence shows they did not. Even if we were to paint the absolute worst case scenario picture of Arbery, one where he had stolen something or vandalized the construction site in any way. Again, there is still no evidence of any such actions. And then Arbery jogged away because he sensed he had been seen, and then the men chased him down, instructed him to stop, and he refused. I'd still think they were guilty of murdering him. You don't get to chase an unarmed person down the street for trespassing or petty theft or vandalism, yell threatening things at them, point guns at them, corner them, and then claim self-defense when they try to disarm you. Especially not after you've been chasing them and

threatening them for five minutes, still haven't called the police, and didn't actually see them commit any crime. Even worse, the McMichaels never claimed they were attempting a citizen's arrest until they lawyer it up. They never had a specific crime they were trying to arrest Arbery for, and they hadn't even called the police when they told Arbery they were trying to stop him for questioning. Another neighbor had already called the cops, which is why they showed up. As for Brian, his case is more interesting. Prosecutors claimed he helped pursue Arbery, that you can hear him cocking a weapon in the video of Arbery, and that he participated in his killing. Brian, meanwhile, has claimed that he was only trying to help and then recorded the incident but didn't know the McMichaels were armed when he initially pursued

them and says he wasn't armed himself. I'm not sure what happens to him in this case, but it seems far more important that the McMichaels get convicted of murder. Regardless, it's another heartbreaking story, one that, unlike the Rittenhouse case, has very obvious and clear racial elements that we as a nation should be able to reckon with and acknowledge. I can't say for sure I know what the jury will do, and I'm rarely going to say that putting someone in prison will help them or society. But anything short of a guilty verdict for the McMichaels would seem like a horrific injustice. All right, that is it for today's newsletter. As always, I'm going to send you off with a have a nice day story.

We don't have any other sections because this alone is enough to cover a entire podcast. But before you go, here's one good story to wash down this very tragic piece. During the pandemic, Target announced that it was going to give its employees off and close all of its stores for Thanksgiving. A few years ago, many retailers began starting the Black Friday shopping blitz on Thursday night after Thanksgiving to compete with online shopping. Many retailers were criticized for making thousands of people work during the holidays. Last year, though, they had to change their schedule during the pandemic to reduce the number of people in stores, and they saw their profits actually rise

in October and November. Now, Target says it is making the change permanent and plans to keep stores closed for all of Thanksgiving, freeing up its workers to be at home with their families this year and the years to come. I know they're not doing it for the best reasons, but it's still a good story. CNBC has the piece, and you can find it in today's newsletter. All right, everybody, that is it. And this is it for Tangle Podcast this week. We are going to be sending a brief newsletter out tomorrow to wish you all a happy Thanksgiving and share some thoughts on gratitude and giving thanks.

But we are not going to be recording any more podcasts until next week. So I hope you have a wonderful vacation and Thanksgiving and we will see you guys back here in a few days. Have a good one. Our newsletter is written by Isaac Saul, edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle's social media manager, Magdalena Bokova, who also helped create our logo.

The podcast is edited by Trevor Eichhorn, and music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. For more from Tangle, subscribe to our newsletter or check out our content archives at www.readtangle.com. Thanks for watching! a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100%

protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at FluCellVax.ca.