A 25-year-old black man was shot dead in Georgia while jogging, prompting online protests labeling the incident as racial profiling

• A 25-year-old black man was shot to death while jogging in a Georgia suburb, and family, friends, and activists say they can't protest properly because of coronavirus social distancing measures, The New York Times reported.
• Ahmaud Arbery was jogging when Gregory McMichael spotted him and thought he resembled a suspect in a string of recent break-ins.
• McMichael and his son Travis, who are white, grabbed their guns and followed Arbery in their truck. A struggle over a shotgun ended with Arbery being shot dead.
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A black man jogging in an affluent suburban Georgia neighborhood was shot dead by neighbors on February 23, who thought he was a robber, setting off online protests labeling the incident as racial profiling, The New York Times reported.

Ahmaud Arbery was jogging around Brunswick, Georgia, before he was killed in nearby Satilla Shores. Arbery ran by Gregory McMichael who called to his son Travis McMichael before grabbing their .357 magnum revolver and shotgun and followed Arbery in a truck, according to The Times.

"Stop, stop," they shouted at Mr. Arbery, according to The Times, "we want to talk to you."

Gregory McMichael told police he thought Arbery was the suspect in a string of break-ins. Arbery died after being shot twice in after "a struggle over the shotgun," according to The Times.

According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the elder McMichael, who is a former police officer, was the only source quoted in the police report and that led critics to suspect that "his influence played a role in authorities' decision not to bring charges."

"There's a lot of suspicion of law enforcement down here," Akeem Baker, a friend of Arbery told AJC.

George E. Barnhill, a prosecutor who previously worked the case told the police that the McMichael's "acted within the scope of Georgia's citizen's arrest statute and that Travis McMichael, who held the shotgun, had acted out of self-defense," according to documents obtained by The Times.

In a letter recusing himself sent to the Glynn County Police Department, Barnhill wrote: "that he did not believe there was evidence of a crime, noting that Gregory McMichael and his son had been legally carrying their weapons under Georgia law."

Additionally, he wrote that the McMichaels had "solid firsthand probable cause," and were justified in chasing him because they thought he was a burglary suspect, under the state's citizen's arrest law, according to The Times.

A new prosecutor is on the case after the Barnhill recused himself because Arbery's family filed a complaint that he had a conflict of interest. Wanda Cooper, Arbery's mother asked Barnhill to recuse himself because his son works in the Brunswick district attorney's office, where Gregory McMichael used to work.

Neither the father nor son have been charged with Arbery's killing.

Some family members and friends of Arbery told The Times that the lack of attention to the case is concerning. They're concerned that the inability to protest and organize due to coronavirus social distancing orders will mean that the case will go unnoticed.

"We can't do anything because of this corona stuff," Wanda Cooper, Arbery's mother told the Times. "We thought about walking out where the shooting occurred, just doing a little march, but we can't be out right now."

Activists in Brunswick have been trying to organize protests online. They created a Facebook page and "coordinated a pressure campaign, emailing law enforcement officials and the local newspaper, created #IRunWithMaud and #JusticeForAhmaud, and even printed T-shirts," the Times reported.

"There are a lot of people absolutely ready to protest. But because of social distancing and being safe, we have to watch what's going on with the coronavirus," Jason Vaughn, a football coach at Brunswick High School who coached Arbery told The Times.

Family members and friends said they believed Arbery was just running the day of the incident.

"He had to run," Baker told the AJC. "That was his therapy."

Hoping to spread awareness of his friend's story, Baker started the Facebook page, "I Run With Maud," the AJC reported.

"I want (investigators) to know they've got a lot of eyes watching them," Baker told the AJC.

However, according to the Times, someone called the police station and said a black man with a white t-shirt had run inside a house under construction that was only "partially closed in."

"And he's running right now," the man told the dispatcher. "There he goes right now!"

Arbery's family said he was most likely wearing a white t-shirt, khaki shorts, Nike sneakers, and a bandanna when he was exercising that day.

Family, friends, and activists told the Times that whether or not Arbery may have been engaging in some property crime did not warrant the attack, and they contend he was targeted for his skin color.

Arbery had some run-ins with police in the past, included being "sentenced to five years' probation as a first offender on charges of carrying a weapon on campus and several counts of obstructing a law enforcement officer," the AJC reported. Arbery was also charged for shoplifting and violating his probation in 2018, according to the AJC.

"I knew that was going to come out," said Cooper, who said her son shouldn't be judged for his past mistakes told the AJC. "He wouldn't harm a flea. His spirit was so humble."

Cooper said that if her son was breaking any laws on the night he was killed, the police should have handled the situation, and he should not have been chased by the McMichaels.

"This incident was at the least a case of overly zealous citizens that wrongfully profiled the victim without cause. These men felt justified in taking the law in their own hands," Rev. John Davis Perry II, the president of the Brunswick chapter of the NAACP told the Times.

He told the AJC that he was concerned about the case failing.

"This has caused many to raise the question, will this be another national case where our legal system fails to be a system of justice for all?" Perry told the AJC.