Here’s an interesting development regarding the two white men who shot and killed unarmed black jogger Ahmaud Arbery. They will not face hate crime charges.
Yes, let that marinate on your brain for a few moments. It’s because Georgia is one of four states in the U.S. that doesn’t have a hate crimes prevention law, according to the Department of Justice. If someone commits a crime motivated by bias, statewide authorities are unable to pursue additional charges or enhanced penalties for the perpetrator. It’s that simple, unfortunately.
“There’s no hate crime in Georgia,” Georgia Bureau of Investigations Director Vic Reynolds said in a press conference Friday when asked whether the men would face hate crime charges.
Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son Travis McMichael, 34, were arrested by Glynn County police and charged with murder and aggravated assault Thursday night. The elder McMichael, by the way, is a former police officer and investigator for the local (Glenn County, GA) DA’s office in Brunswick.
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The arrests of the McMichaels came just 36 hours after the Georgia Bureau of Investigation began assisting in the probe, which began more than 10 weeks ago, according to USA Today.
Reynolds said the video of the incident that has been spread widely on social media was a key piece of evidence in the case.
He also said the department will be investigating William Bryan, the man who filmed the incident, to determine whether he should be arrested too.
“We are going to go wherever the evidence takes us,” Reynolds said. “In a perfect world, we would have preferred to have been asked to become involved in February, of course.”
As we’ve previously reported, Arbery, who was black, was killed Feb. 23 on a residential street about 2 miles from his home outside Brunswick, Georgia. Gregory McMichael told police they saw him running and believed he was a burglary suspect, so they armed themselves, got in a truck and followed him. They told police Arbery attacked them after one of the men got out of the truck with a shotgun.
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