Thursday, March 28, 2024

Ahmaud Arbery’s Mother Files Lawsuit Claiming Police Conspired to Protect Son’s Killers

*The mother of Ahmaud Arbery filed a lawsuit on Tuesday alleging police and prosecutors attempted to “cover up” her son’s murder. 

Arbery is the 25-year-old Black man who was pursued by three suspected white supremacists and fatally shot last year while jogging through a Georgia neighborhood. At one point along his route, he stopped to check out a house under construction — and by doing so, two local men concluded he was criminal. 

Arbery was shot dead by father and son Gregory and Travis McMichael. William “Roddie” Bryan has insisted that he was simply a witness to the McMichaels hunting down and killing Arbery on February 23, claiming he had zero involvement with the slaying. He was arrested following public outcry over his cell phone footage which captured Arbery’s killing and catapulted the case into the national spotlight.

Body-cam video also shows Bryan admitting to an officer that he tried to block Arbery on the belief that he was a burglary suspect.  

READ MORE: Ahmaud Arbery Murder Suspects Request That He Not be Referred to As ‘Victim’ During Trial

ahmaud-arbery-the-mcmichaels
Ahmaud Arbery & the McMichaels

More than two months after Arbery’s death, the McMichaels were arrested and charged with murder and aggravated assault. They told police they were acting in self-defense and believed Arbery was a burglary suspect. Bryan was charged with felony murder and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment.

Arbery’s mother’s lawsuit alleges that local law enforcement officials conspired to protect her son’s killers.

“For nearly three months, Glynn County police officers, the chief of police, and two prosecutors conspired to hide the circumstances surrounding Ahmaud’s death and to protect the men who murdered him,” the complaint alleges, before painting a picture of underhanded dealings and intentional mishandling of the case. 

Here’s more from a CBS report:

The civil complaint details the alleged illegal actions that took place before and after Arbery’s death. According to the complaint, after receiving several calls from the construction site’s owner about trespassing on the property, Glynn County police “deputized” the McMichaels, Bryan, and one other man to act as law enforcement officials in regards to the site. As a result, police allegedly began passing the owner’s complaints on to the men and instructed the owner of the site to call Gregory McMichael “day or night” with trespassing concerns. 

The complaint claims the alleged deputization of the three men led to them feeling emboldened to pursue Arbery on February 23 without waiting for law enforcement to intervene.

Ahmaud arbery2

“Defendants Gregory McMichael and Travis McMichael armed themselves to carry out duties they had been entrusted with by the Glynn County Police Department in response to recent trespasses at the Construction Lot,” the complaint alleged. “Defendants Gregory McMichael and Travis McMichael had been authorized and encouraged to take such law enforcement action…” 

And here’s more from Complex:

The case alleges that McMichael’s law enforcement connections extended well beyond the officers. He had worked as an investigator for former district attorney Jackie Johnson. The suit claims she had personally intervened on behalf of McMichael when he was in danger of losing his arrest powers, due to a failure to complete state-mandated training. It also claims she instructed the officers on-scene to not arrest the three men. Taken together, Cooper-Jones hopes to show that the D.A. created a presumption of impunity for McMichael. 

The lawsuit comes exactly one year after Arbery’s killing.

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