Jury Delivers Verdict in Ahmaud Arbery Federal Hate Crimes Case
Around the nation, there have long been fears of a new wave of hate rising in the streets.
We’ve seen countless examples of this of late, with swastika graffiti popping up in incredibly unforgivable places, we’ve watched mainstream television figures downplay The Holocaust, and we’ve even seen a number of incidents in which hate crimes are hoaxed for attention.
The nation truly has found itself in some sort of racial reckoning, and the latest news out of the Ahmaud Arbery case has sent a clear message to those with hate in their hearts.
A jury in Brunswick, Ga., unanimously found defendants Travis McMichael, his father Greg McMichael, and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan guilty on all counts in a federal hate crimes trial.
The jury deliberated for four hours. At the heart of this case was a question of whether or not race was a motivating factor in why the three defendants chased and shot Ahmaud Arbery as he ran through their coastal Georgia neighborhood in February 2020.
The jury was shown evidence of the attackers using hateful, racially-charged language in their daily lives.
To convict on this hate crimes charge, federal prosecutors were tasked with proving to the jury that the defendants targeted Arbery because he was Black. For four days last week, witnesses recounted racist interactions with Greg and Travis McMichael, and prosecutors spent a full morning of the trial going over racist and sometimes violent content from the defendants’ digital footprints, including texts and videos.
America, as a nation, was founded with the belief that all are created equal, and that every single American has the right to liberty and justice. A rural Georgia jury has upheld that inalienable characteristic of our country.