Today, Explained - Will Ahmaud Arbery’s killing change Georgia law?

Episode Date: May 12, 2020

Two white men are accused of killing a black jogger. Georgia state Rep. Jasmine Clark wants to change the laws that could be used to defend them. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Visit connectsontario.ca. There aren't many silver linings to this coronavirus pandemic, but it has provided relief from some of the more horrific recurrences in American life. School shootings, for example. Depending on how you define them, we just had the first march without a school shooting since 2002. We've been spared the aerial views of crying kids fleeing classrooms. But last week, we were reminded this pandemic won't spare us from another horrific recurrence in American life. An unarmed black man, a shooting, a video. Sean Collins has been covering the Ahmaud Arbery story for Vox. Ahmaud Arbery was a 25-year-old man who lived in Georgia near the small city of Brunswick in the southeast corner of the state. He was sort of known locally for his athletic prowess, particularly in high school, where he was a football star.

And he was still a very athletic person who was very into fitness. He would run all the time. His mother has described him as a very kind and caring person. She said in interviews that to know Ahmad was to love Ahmad, and friends have said the same. They've talked about how supportive he was. One friend, same as Akeem Baker, gave an interview to the New York Times and just kind of really talked about how Ahmad was always there for him in key parts of his life. He was a bright light in this world of darkness. He saw the best in everyone that he came across.

Tell me what happened to Ahmad on February 23rd. February 23rd is the day that Ahmad died, or actually was killed. He went out for a jog in a place called Satilla Shores. It's a predominantly white area, just a few miles away from his home and apparently was part of a route that he had run more than once. And from what we can gather from 911 calls and later police reports, he came across this house that was under construction. And it had a surveillance system, which he was caught on. And he didn't take anything. He didn't do anything.

He was just kind of jagging out. And then he ran off. But someone called the police about Ahmad being near this house that was under construction. And you said someone's breaking into it right now? No, it's all open. It's under construction. And he's running right now. There he goes right now. Okay, what is he doing? He's running down the street.

The caller is unidentified, but you continue the run, and then 911 continued to get calls. 9-1-1, what's the address of your emergency? I'm out here at Sotelo Shores. There's a black male running down the street. Sotelo, where at Sotelo Shores? I don't know what street we're on. Stop right there!

Stop! As he's running, he catches the attention of a retired policeman and a retired district attorney investigator named Gregory McMichael, who is standing on his lawn. Gregory McMichael later tells police that he saw Arbery hauling ass down his street, turned to his son and said, Travis, the guy is running down the street. Let's go. What guy? How do these guys know there's a guy, Travis, the guy is running down the street. Let's go. What guy? How do these guys know there's a guy? What's the guy? So the guy is a guy Gregory McMichaels believed may have been responsible for some burglaries that had been reported in the last three months in the

neighborhood. Okay, so there have been reports of a burglary in the neighborhood, and Gregory and Travis McMichael see Ahmaud Arbery, a random black man, and make a correlation. What happens next? So what they do is they go and grab some guns, the McMichaels, and they get into Travis' truck. At some point, they let a neighbor know. His name is William Bryan. His nickname is Roddy. And he kind of becomes important later on. So they take off in the truck.

And they're basically following him on as he runs. They can't, he's again a great athlete. So they apparently can't really pin him down. He evades them at least once or twice. And so what they do is they try to like fence him in using their vehicle. Apparently can't really pin him down. He evades them at least once or twice. And so what they do is they try to, like, fence him in using their vehicle. And then also apparently Roddy is working to fence Ahmad in in his vehicle as well. They finally cut him off.

And this is when the video that's gone viral kind of begins. Sir, hello, sir. Sir, where you at? Arbery is running up the street towards a white pickup truck that's parked in the middle of the road. There's two white men there. One is in the bed of the pickup truck. He has a handgun. One is standing next to the truck. He has a handgun. One is standing next to the truck.

He has a bigger gun. Looks like a shotgun. You hear a shot, and then Arbery and the white man kind of reemerge on the other side of the truck, struggling over this weapon. And then there is another gunshot. We can't see what happens next. They go out of frame, but they come back in.

There's a third gunshot. And we see the black man's shirt is completely red with blood. The white man steps back and the black man, Arbery, falls onto the pavement. They rolled over the body, Gregor McMichael says, to look for a weapon and there was no weapon there. Someone calls the police. They arrive. Arbery is dead. They take the statement from Gregory McMichael. They take the video from William Roddy Bryan. And everybody goes home, except for Ahmaud Arbery. Police show up. An unarmed man, Ahmaud Arbery, has been killed, shot to death. No arrests are made. No, Sean, there were no arrests made at the time of Arbery's killing. Gregory McMichael told investigators he thought Arbery was a burglary suspect and ordered him to stop. McMichael then said Arbery violently attacked his son,

and the two fought over the shotgun before Travis shot him twice. Police took the statement from Gregor McMichael. They put that in their police report, filed that. Police also got a chance to watch the video that most people have now seen. It was taken by William Bryant, who goes by Roddy, Roddy Bryant. And then that video was later submitted into evidence. But no, no arrests were made at the time of the shooting. So that's like two and a half months ago. What happens in the intervening weeks? Well, a lot happens, but also not much happens. There is something of an investigation that gets going, but the first DA who is kind of put on the case has to recuse herself because she was Gregory McMichael's former employer.

Then there was another district attorney assigned to the case. His name is George Barnhill. The thing of note that he did was writing a letter that kind of laid out all the reasons why he felt the McMichaels had done nothing wrong. So he noted that Georgia has an open carry law, so you can carry weapons as long as you legally have the weapon, you can carry the weapon around with you wherever you want. That there's a citizen arrest law in Georgia that says if someone sees

a crime being done, then they can try to arrest the person on behalf of law enforcement. And Barnhill also said that the McMichaels had done nothing wrong because Georgia has a stand-your-ground law. So if you're armed and you feel threatened, you can shoot the person and you're okay. But this defense didn't get very far after this letter came out, because Barnhill had to recuse himself as well, because his son works in the same office, the same district attorney's office that George McMichael had worked in. So he recuses himself, and then shortly before the video comes out, a third district attorney is put on the case. And that's when things begin to escalate.

Tonight, video has surfaced of an African-American man being chased down and killed. His family says he was just out jogging. Arbery's mother, Wanda Jones. Proves that my son was not committing a crime. He was out for his daily jog and he was hunted down like an animal and killed. Ahmaud's mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, really played a crucial role in trying to amplify this story and getting justice for her son. She's a large part about why this isn't just a local story, but a story that kind of speaks to what it's like to live in America, especially if you're a Black person. What happens when people start to see this video? Today, I mourn the death of justice. Won't you mourn with me? So there is a national outrage from people online watching the video to people in Georgia.

Earlier this week, I watched a video depicting Mr. Aubrey's last moments alive. I can tell you it's absolutely horrific and Georgians deserve answers. It looks like murder. It looks like vigilante behavior that should be charged and criminalized. To President Trump. I think it's horrible and it's certainly being looked at by many people. I'm speaking to many people about it. And that kind of leads the wheels of justice to turn a little bit faster. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation gets involved and very quickly,

in fact, two days after they get involved both gregory and travis mcmichael are arrested handcuffed and appearing on video from jail gregory and travis mcmichael were denied bail in their first court appearance today both father and son charged with felony murder now a few things have happened this week since then. The case is now on its fourth prosecutor, Joyette Holmes, a district attorney in Metro Atlanta, appointed today by Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr. He was the first black district attorney to be put on the case. The Department of Justice is also apparently weighing hate crime charges in the case and has been asked by Georgia's Attorney General to look into how the investigation into Arbery's killing was conducted. We want to know what took so long and why local authorities weren't able to make this case when state authorities seem to be able to make it in just 36 hours. After the break, I'll ask a Georgia lawmaker if the state's citizen's arrest or stand-your-ground laws should be changed.

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to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Jasmine Clark, you represent Georgia's 108th district in the state assembly. This video is shocking and even more shocking to a lot of people was this idea that what transpired in this video could be justified

by some sort of citizen's arrest law or a stand your ground law. Can you help us understand the citizen's arrest law that you have in Georgia? So the Georgia citizen's arrest law basically states that a private person may arrest an offender if the offense is committed in his presence or within his immediate knowledge. Also, if the offense is a felony and the offender is escaping or attempting to escape, a private person may arrest him upon reasonable and probable grounds of suspicion. So that's the actual legalese wording in the Georgia Code. I imagine laws like these come in handy when a store owner is trying to detain a shoplifter or something like that. Do you think they apply to what happened in this case to Ahmaud Arbery, like one of the earlier prosecutors said?

I think there are a number of factors that make this not what I would consider a lawful citizen's arrest. But I do want to be clear, I'm not a lawyer. And also, I do believe that we have a very capable prosecutor on the case now, and I'm sure that they will take all these things into account. So I'm saying this to you as a state representative, but also just as a citizen reading this law and reading it out loud several times and having watched the gut wrenching video several times just to try to get an understanding of what happened. And I do not believe that this was a lawful citizen's arrest. It was cold-blooded murder. Do you think there's a way to address these kinds of shootings in the Georgia legislature, change these citizens arrest laws maybe? Yeah. So the first thing that I think of is Representative Renita Shannon has already had a bill drafted that does exactly what you're saying.

It reverses this law. It actually just strikes this law from the code. In all honesty, I do not see any reason for any private person to be deputized to arrest people just because they think a crime has been committed. Or even if they see the crime committed, in my opinion, I think it's better to get a description of the person, contact law enforcement, and let them handle it. That's what their job is. Right, but Georgia tried and failed to reverse the Stand Your Ground law it has in 2014. And Stand Your Ground laws are part of this picture, right? They legalize killing someone if you feel threatened. This story feels a lot like Trayvon Martin's from Florida. Do you think this can change in Georgia, in Florida, anywhere else that has these laws?

You know, honestly, I don't think there is a political will to change it. The thing about it is we live in a gun-loving country and we live in a gun-loving state. In my opinion, the law needs to be changed to be very specific on what self-defense really is. And there shouldn't be any wiggle room for this to be a license to murder people just because you want to or just because you felt threatened. You know, we always hear the phrase, I feared for my life. I think that phrase is extremely overused. And a lot of instances, that's what's used to justify standing your ground. And that, I do believe, is where there's too much gray area. I don't think

fear should be enough to justify killing someone. It needs to be a legitimate threat. I'm sure you have Black constituents calling in right now telling you they're extremely frustrated or worse, right? I mean, you're a black lawmaker in a state where these laws you're saying are likely to not change. What do you say to people who are calling you, you know, scared for their children's lives, who are scared to let their kids go play outside, especially wearing a mask even in this climate where this man was executed for going on a jog and looking a certain way, and that we might not have even known about it were it not for this video that was released last week.

Right. You know, I am a mom myself. I have a 11-year-old daughter and a 13, almost 14-year-old son. Both of them are athletes. And right after this happened, they both asked me about going for runs. My daughter runs track. My son plays football and basketball. My daughter also plays basketball.

These are athletes. And the truth is, I am a state representative. I live in my community. I know my neighbors. I still do not feel comfortable letting my children go for a run outside of where I can say is that as far as the citizen's arrest law, I am going to sign on to the bill that has been proposed by Representative Shannon. That's a good first step. So that's what you're doing as a lawmaker in Georgia. What are you saying to your kids? I mean, what do you say to them when they want to go out for a run and you're scared for their lives? I actually sat down and had a conversation with them about it, because I think it's really important to prepare your children for the world. You know, being a mother of Black children, but especially a mother of a Black son, there are conversations that I have to have that I feel it is just important to have. And I hate that it's 2020

and I feel like I'm probably having the same conversations that my grandparents had with my parents and that my great-grandparents had with my grandparents. But here I am, I have to have these conversations with my children. I have to let them know that it is not fair the way that things are, and it is not right, and it is not right and it is not just. But we cannot control other people. The only thing we can control is ourselves. And so at most, we have to always be diligent. We have to always be careful. You know, I look at that video and I feel like there's no amount of careful

that Ahmaud could have been to prevent what happened to him. Because those men were men on a mission. They were hunting down what they felt was someone who didn't belong in their space. You know, there's only so much careful you can be on your own. But, you know, I just tell my children, I just want to see them come home every day. I want to see them wake up in the morning. I want to see them do great things. And so to do that, we cannot look at the world with rose-colored glasses and believe that just because people can do the right thing means they will do the right thing. I use examples of things like this to show that while there are lots of great things in this world,

there's still a lot that we have to work on. And we still have a long way to go. Representative Clark, thank you so much for your time this morning. Thank you very much for the interview and for the chance to speak on this law and just to speak on the situation as a whole. I really do appreciate the opportunity. Okay. All the best to you. Take care. you