Grand jury to consider fatal shooting of Georgia man

A Georgia prosecutor wants a grand jury to decide if criminal charges are warranted in the fatal shooting of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery in the coastal city of Brunswick, Ga., on Feb. 23. According to a Glynn County police report, Gregory McMichael said he and his son Travis McMichael, who are white, armed themselves, got in their truck, and pursued an African American man after they saw him running in their neighborhood and because he matched the description of a burglary suspect. The father told police his son shot Arbery after he “began to violently attack” and the two struggled over the son’s shotgun. A cellphone video surfaced on Tuesday that attorneys for Arbery’s family said shows the killing. In the video, a runner passes a pickup truck and then a gunshot sounds. The runner then wrestles a man over what appears to be a shotgun or rifle. After the sound of a second shot, the runner punches the man. Following a third shot, the runner staggers and falls face down.

What is happening with the case? Authorities have yet to arrest or charge anyone, prompting an outcry from the NAACP and others, including, Lee Merritt, the attorney representing Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper Jones, who said her son was only out for his daily jog that day. “These men were vigilantes, they were a posse and they performed a modern lynching in the middle of the day,” Merritt said. An outside prosecutor assigned to examine the case said a grand jury will hear evidence, but that won’t happen for more than a month. Georgia courts remain mostly closed until at least June 13 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Dig deeper: From the WORLD archives, read Marvin Olasky’s recommendations for books about African American experiences in the United States.