COPS are reviewing “additional footage” taken before Ahmaud Arbery was shot dead – but lawyers say it “doesn’t change the charges” against his alleged killers.
The 25-year-old unarmed black man was allegedly shot dead by Travis and Gregory McMichael, who were booked on charges relating to his murder after a video of the shooting was leaked.
Arbery’s death has prompted nationwide outrage and local protests because he was unarmed and black while the white gunmen pursuing him had firearms.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that the GBI are looking into another video, which apparently captures the minutes before Arbery’s alleged murder on February 23.
The arrest comes after:
The AJC obtained the footage from a home security camera system in the area – but a former prosecutor who reviewed it told the publication it wouldn’t alter the charges against the McMichaels.
“We are using video to put the timeline together to fill in the blanks of what happened that afternoon,” Scott Dutton, GBI’s Deputy Director of investigations, said.
The video shows a figure – believed to be Arbery – walking around a construction site minutes before he was shot dead by two men in a pickup truck, believed to be the McMichaels.
In it, a man wearing a white t-shirt walks into the garage of a house under construction before strolling around the back of it.
Arbery was reportedly on the construction site for less than five minutes, he can’t be seen for the majority of the tape time, and he doesn’t appear to take anything.
Shortly after his appearance, another man in overalls can be seen, apparently observing the site.
After what appears to be a cop car passes, the man believed to be Arbery comes exits the front door of the house and runs towards Satilla Drive, where the McMichaels live.
It’s unclear what he’s doing there that Sunday afternoon but police believe around one minute into this video, someone called the cops.
The Glynn County 911 center got a call about a man on the construction site shortly after 1pm.
Travis, 34, and his dad Gregory, 64, have claimed they thought Arbery was a burglar which is why they followed him with firearms and tried to make a citizens arrest.
But Former Fulton prosecutor Manny Arora told AJC entering a construction site is at most a misdemeanor, unless something was taken from it.
“If you initiate an assault you don’t get then claim self-defense if the other person reacts to them to be assaulted,” Aurora said, adding the video doesn’t change the charges.
The news comes after a local man who caught the fatal shooting of Arbery insisted he’s “not a vigilante,” saying he was filming due to an uptick in crime amid calls for his arrest.
William “Roddie” Bryan is a neighbor of the McMichaels who were arrested on charges of murder and aggravated assault when cops swarmed their suburban home on Thursday.
But Bryan has insisted he wasn’t involved in the incident, which saw Arbery followed and gunned down.
The McMichaels’ neighbor is adamant he wasn’t their accomplice after the Director of the GBI Vic Reynolds said he could also be arrested after reviewing the footage of the shooting.
On Friday, Bryan’s attorney Kevin Gough denied his involvement while an attorney for Arbery’s family, Ben Crump, called for Bryan’s arrest.
“He was in his yard and this just starts happening in front of him,” Gough told reporters on Friday. “He gets in his car and tries to document that.”
He was in his yard and this just starts happening in front of him.
Attorney Kevin Gough
The lawyer told reporters his client drove behind the McMichaels car because he didn’t recognize Arbery after a supposed increase in burglaries in the locality but he knew their vehicle.
Glynn County Police Detective Lt. Cheri Bashlor said there were no reported break ins for seven weeks leading up to the shooting, however.
But Gough insisted Bryan was merely a “witness to the tragic shooting and death of Ahmaud Arbery.”
“From day one Mr Bryan has fully cooperated with law enforcement officers investigating this matter,” the lawyer said, reports First Coast News.
Bryan maintains he handed over the footage to cops on the scene, he has since lost his job, and his family have been threatened.
USA Today reports all three men had been in “hot pursuit of a burglary suspect,” according to Waycross Judicial Circuit District Attorney George E. Barnhill’s memo.
So far, two district attorneys – including Barnhill – have been recused from from the case due to conflicts.
