The three men involved in the death of 25-year-old jogger Ahmaud Arbery were indicted by a federal grand jury on Wednesday for hate crimes and attempting kidnapping. Travis McMichael, Greg McMichael, and William “Roddie” Bryan were previously indicted last June on nine other charges, including felony murder. Georgia was one of only four states without hate crime laws until one was passed following Arbery’s death.
The trio followed, then confronted, Arbery on February 23, 2020, as he jogged down a road in Satilla Shores. It ended with Travis McMichael shooting him. The three were “armed themselves with firearms, got into a truck, and chased Arbery through the public streets of the neighborhood while yelling at him, using their truck to cut off his route, and threatening him with firearms,” prosecutors said on Wednesday. The men “used force and threats of force to intimidate and interfere with Arbery’s right to use a public street because of his race,” they added. In addition to the hate crime charges, the men have been charged with attempting to “seize and confine Arbery” by chasing him in their trucks, and trying to coral him. The McMichaels were also charged with using a firearm.
Read it at Department of Justice
