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Quicktake’s Madison Mills speaks with Bloomberg legal reporter Erik Larson

All three White men charged in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery last year were convicted of murder by a jury in Georgia.

Arbery’s father let out a whoop as the first guilty verdict was read out by the judge, who stopped and asked for quiet. The jury’s finding follows a two-week trial over the February 2020 shooting, which was captured on video. 

Prosecutors said 25-year-old Arbery was murdered “because he was a Black man running down the street,” echoing a 911 call one of the defendants made. Arbery’s name became a rallying cry in the Black Lives Matter protests that swept the U.S. last year.
“I never thought this day would come,” Wanda Cooper-Jones, Arbery’s mother, told supporters gathered outside of the courthouse Wednesday after the verdict was read. “He will now rest in peace.”

Lawyers for the three accused said Arbery, who was unarmed, was shot in self-defense after he resisted the men’s attempt to carry out a citizen’s arrest under state law. Prosecutors said that defense was untenable because it was the three defendants who initiated the conflict by chasing Arbery down with their two pickup trucks.

“These are two men who honestly believed what they were doing was the right thing to do,” said Jason Sheffield, Travis McMichael’s attorney, referring to his client and his father, Greg. “That is a very disappointing and sad verdict.”

The verdict comes less than a week after a jury in Kenosha, Wisconsin, acquitted 18-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse of all charges in the shooting deaths of two men and the wounding of a third at a chaotic BLM protest last year. Rittenhouse also claimed self-defense in his case, in which all the main figures were White. That acquittal spurred small protests in several U.S. cities.

Cameras outside the Georgia courthouse captured a small crowd celebrating the verdict and repeating a chant that was often heard during the BLM protests, with one person shouting “Say his name,” and the crowd responding with “Ahmaud Arbery.”
U.S. President Joe Biden reacted to the verdict by saying Arbery’s murder was a “devastating reminder” of how far the U.S. has to go to achieve racial justice.

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