Travis McMichael, the Georgia man accused of murdering Ahmaud Arbery, admitted on the stand Thursday that the 25-year-old unarmed Black man never yelled or threatened him before he began pursuing Arbery in a pickup truck—with his shotgun.
“He did not threaten me verbally, no,” McMichael said during his second day on the stand at his own trial. He also admitted Arbery did not shout or brandish any kind of weapon as he began chasing him down on Feb. 23, 2020. “He was just running,” he added.
McMichael, his father, Gregory, and William “Roddie” Bryan face several charges for allegedly chasing and ultimately killing Arbery, who was known to jog in Satilla Shores, a neighborhood in Brunswick, Georgia, on the afternoon of Feb. 23, 2020. Travis McMichael was caught on video footage filmed by Bryan firing the fatal shots.
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McMichael insisted on Thursday that while Arbery remained silent and continued to run away from him and his father—who were chasing him in their truck—he still believed he needed to stop him for the police.
“He was acting weird, he was acting funny when I tried to talk to him before so I was on alert,” McMichael said.
The younger McMichael was the first defense witness to testify for the trio, who all allege they were trying to perform a citizen’s arrest on Arbery in connection with suspected break-ins in the area. The defense is also poised to argue that the trio was acting under the state’s so-called Stand Your Ground law, which allows Georgians to use deadly force if they believe they are at risk of bodily injury or death.
“I want to give my side of the story, explain what happened in the way I see it,” McMichael said on the stand on Wednesday.
McMichael’s father and Bryan did not testify, and defense attorneys rested their case on Thursday afternoon after calling seven witnesses to the stand. Closing arguments in the trial will begin Monday morning.
On Wednesday, McMichael told jurors that in the months leading up to Arbery’s death, crime in Satilla Shores had become a “common occurrence” that he felt qualified to help with because of his past law enforcement training in the Coast Guard. He added that his training focused on how to de-escalate situations, and claimed that one strategy he learned was to point a gun at a suspect to defuse the situation.
The defense also called several neighbors to the stand on Thursday, who all detailed how they believed Satilla Shores was rife with crime before Arbery’s death. Brooke Perez, a neighbor who said her car had been previously broken into, told jurors that people in the area frequently posted on a Facebook page to “basically to keep neighbors informed” about incidents in the area.
Two weeks before Arbery’s fatal shooting, McMichael said he called 911 after seeing someone “lurking” outside a home under construction, whom he believed was “stealing, breaking in, [and] burglarizing.”
On Feb. 23, authorities say that Gregory McMichael spotted Arbery on his front lawn after leaving that unfinished home. Travis McMichael said that he was in the living room trying to get his son down for a nap when his “frantic” father walked in and said “the guy that’s been breaking in down the road just ran by the house.”
“I assumed it was the same guy from Feb. 11. I think he told me to grab my gun...so I grabbed the shotgun,” McMichael said, noting that they did not know whether Arbery was armed or not.
Authorities say that the McMichaels got into a white pickup truck and chased after Arbery before unsuccessfully cutting him off. Describing his perspective of the incident, McMichael told jurors on Wednesday that he jogged up next to an “angry” Arbery to ask him what was going on.
“I was trying to keep the situation calm,” McMichael insisted Thursday.
Around the same time, prosecutors allege their neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, joined the pursuit in his own truck and began to record the encounter on his cellphone. Senior Assistant District Attorney Linda Dunikoski said during opening statements that during the chase, Gregory McMichael yelled, “Stop, or I’ll blow your fucking head off” to Arbery.
Travis McMichael testified that he did not know Bryan—and assumed he was Arbery’s getaway vehicle. McMichael testified he eventually got out of the car to confront Arbery, who grabbed for his gun during a struggle.
“He had my gun. It was obvious that he was attacking me and if he’d have gotten the shotgun from me, it’d be a life and death situation,” McMichael said Wednesday.
On Thursday, McMichael added that he and Arbery were “were face to face” when he fired his weapon, adding that “it happened so fast.”
Dr. Edmund R. Donoghue, a forensic pathologist at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, testified this week that Arbery suffered multiple shots at very close range—including wounds to the chest, wrist, and armpit. Donoghue determined that the wounds—which were captured on Bryan’s now-infamous footage of the incident—were fatal and there was nothing emergency responders could have done to save Arbery's life.
After the incident, McMichael told jurors that while he was “nervous” while he was being interviewed by police—he never thought he would go to jail for killing Arbery because he was simply “going through an investigation.”
“I just killed a man. I had blood on me still. It was the most traumatic event of my life. I was scared to death,” McMichael said. “This was the most traumatic event I’ve been through in my life.”
