The full story of how the Ahmaud Arbery 'lynching' became a national flashpoint for justice

• Ahmaud Arbery, a black man, was jogging in his neighborhood in Georgia on February 23 when he was killed in a shooting after being chased by Gregory and Travis McMichael, a father and son.
• A police report said the McMichaels mistook Arbery, who was unarmed, for a suspect in a string of neighborhood break-ins.
• A video of the chase and shooting was shared on social media and caused outrage.
• In the two months since Arbery died, two district attorneys have recused themselves from the case over potential conflicts of interest.
• Gregory and Travis McMichael were ultimately arrested in May in connection with Arbery's death. They were charged with felony murder and aggravated assault.

May 8 would have been Ahmaud Arbery's 26th birthday.

Arbery, a black man, was out running in his neighborhood outside Brunswick, Georgia, at about 1 p.m. on February 23.

He was chased and gunned down by a 64-year-old former police officer, Gregory McMichael, and his 34-year-old son, Travis McMichael, both of whom are white.

The shooting, captured on video by a witness in a nearby car, prompted a wave of protests and demands for justice.

On Thursday, May 7, agents from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation arrested Gregory and Travis McMichael and announced that the two were charged with felony murder and aggravated assault.

At a news conference a day later, the bureau's director, Vic Reynolds, said there was "sufficient probable cause to charge the McMichaels with felony murder and aggravated assault."

"I can tell you that if we didn't believe it, we wouldn't have arrested them," he said. "If we believe it, then we're going to put the bracelets on them, and that's exactly what we did yesterday evening."

William "Roddie" Bryan, a witness who filmed the fatal encounter, was arrested on May 21 for felony murder.

Glynn County Magistrate Court Judge Wallace E. Harrell decided at a probable cause hearing on June 4 that there's enough evidence for all three defendants to stand trial.

Here's everything we know about the death of Ahmaud Arbery.

A local police report describes how the McMichaels chased Arbery and shots were fired after a struggle

A Glynn County police report describes how Arbery was shot after struggling with Travis McMichael over his shotgun.

Travis McMichael's father told the responding officer, J. Brandeberry, that Arbery caught their attention because he resembled a man accused of a rash of residential break-ins. He said they decided to grab their guns and chase him.

However, The Brunswick News reported that only one burglary was reported in the area from the start of 2020 to the day Arbery died. The sole item stolen was a gun from Travis McMichael's unlocked pickup truck.

"McMichael stated he was in his front yard and saw the suspect from the break-ins 'hauling ass' down Satilla Drive toward Burford Drive," Brandeberry's report said.

"McMichael stated he then ran inside his house and called to Travis (McMichael) and said, 'Travis, the guy is running down the street let's go,'" the report continued. "McMichael stated he went to his bedroom and grabbed his .357 Magnum and Travis grabbed his shotgun because they 'didn't know if the male was armed or not.'"

Jumping into their white pickup truck, the pair chased Arbery and tried to block his path, but he turned around and jogged away, the report said. They pursued him, with Gregory McMichael shouting, "Stop, stop, we want to talk to you," before pulling up near Arbery.

At that point, Travis McMichael got out of the truck with his shotgun, the report said, adding that Gregory McMichael said Arbery "began to violently attack Travis."

"The two men then started fighting over the shotgun at which point Travis fired a shot and then a second later there was a second shot," the report said.

Three shots can be heard in the video, with the last one fired point-blank, before Arbery stumbles and falls facedown.

Gregory McMichael said he rolled Arbery over to see if he had a weapon, the report said. He did not.

When he arrived, Brandeberry saw that Gregory McMichael had blood on his hands.

The McMichaels were booked in Glynn County's jail on May 7, more than two months after Arbery's death.

"This should have occurred the day it happened," Akeem Baker, one of Arbery's close friends, told The Associated Press on Friday. "There's no way without the video this would have occurred. I'm just glad the light's shining very bright on this situation."

Two shotgun wounds to the chest killed Arbery, according to an autopsy released by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's forensic division. A bullet also grazed his right wrist as he struggled with Travis McMichael for the shotgun, the report said, adding that he had no alcohol or drugs in his system at the time of death.

In court on June 4, GBI Special Agent Richard Dial testified that Travis McMichael uttered a racial slur after firing three shots from a pump-action shotgun that killed Arbery.

"Mr. Bryan said that after the shooting took place, before the police's arrival, while Mr. Arbery was on the ground, that he heard Travis McMichael make the statement: 'F---ing n-----," Dial said.

'When he felt like he could not escape, he chose to fight'

Arbery — who wasn't a criminal suspect, but was a former athlete — was buried at New Springfield Baptist Church in Alexander, Georgia, on February 29, his obituary said.

His obituary described him as "humble, kind and well mannered," and someone who "always made sure he never departed from his loved ones without an 'I Love You.'" He enjoyed telling jokes and spending time with his family and friends, and he "had a smile that would light up a room."

Arbery was also a sports fan; basketball and football were his favorites. On the football field, his jersey number was 21, "which was passed down from his older brother, Marcus, Jr," his obituary said, noting that he studied at Brunswick High School and South Georgia Technical College.

Arbery's parents, Wanda Cooper-Jones and Marcus Arbery Sr., and their attorneys, Benjamin Crump and S. Lee Merritt, held a video news conference earlier in May.

"He was my baby boy that I actually had on Mother's Day of 1994," Cooper-Jones said. "He was the baby of the family. But that being said, Ahmaud was his sister and brother's keeper."

"His spirit was good ... He was the 'yes, ma'am' and 'no, ma'am' type of fellow," she added.

Cooper-Jones recalled the police telling her that her son was shot dead by a homeowner during a home burglary.

It was only after his funeral that she came across a news article reporting that he was killed in the street, not a home or a yard, First Coast News reported. So she began to look into the circumstances of his death.

"It was a hate crime," Marcus Arbery Sr. told First Coast News. "My young son wasn't doing nothing — minding his own business, running and working out. And that's a crime? To work out and run and he ain't breaking no law? No. Time out."

Reynolds, however, pointed out that Georgia doesn't have a hate-crime statute. Previous efforts to pass a hate crimes bill into law have been unsuccessful, but Rep. Karen Bennett, chairwoman of the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus, told CBS News that Arbery's death has spurred a "newfound resurgence of interest in making sure Georgia gets this on the books."

Cooper-Jones, for her part, said she hadn't seen the gruesome footage of her son's final moments.

"I don't think that I'll ever reach the mental capacity to ever watch the video," she said in the news conference. "You know, I saw my son come in the world, and seeing him leave the world — it's not something that I want to see, ever."

Crump told Insider that the video looked like "a hunting party."

"We have every right to expect an arrest immediately based on the ocular proof presented in that video of his execution," Crump said.

He added that if it were Arbery and his father who had pulled the trigger on a white jogger, they'd have been arrested on the spot.

"When we believe if this was any other citizen, especially a citizen of color, they would have been arrested because you have an unarmed man in a jogging attack," Crump said. "He doesn't have any burglary outfit or burglary tools or anything like that. I mean, he's jogging, and this guy kills them, and they just take his word for it."

Travis McMichael's attorney, Jason Sheffield, said in court that his client shot Arbery as an act of self-defense because Arbery ignored his orders to stop and get on the ground, and instead "squared up" as if he was going to attack.

However, Dial countered that narrative saying: "I don't think it was self-defense by Mr. McMichael — I think it was self-defense by Mr. Arbery."

"I believe Mr. Arbery's decision was to just try to get away, and when he felt like he could not escape, he chose to fight," he added.

'They were performing a lynching in the middle of the day'

Meanwhile, body camera footage from 2017 shows Arbery in a confrontation with Glynn County police officers in a public park. In it, police can be seen attempting to use a stun gun on Arbery after he told them, "You bothering me for nothing!"

The footage was obtained by the Guardian and shows Arbery getting agitated upon learning that he was in an area known for drugs. "Criminal activity? I'm in a f---ing park! I work! What the f--- you talking about?" he asked.

"This appears to be just a glimpse into the kind of scrutiny Ahmaud Arbery faced not only by this police department, but ultimately regular citizens" like the McMichaels, attorneys for the Arbery family said in a statement.

Merritt also alleged that Gregory and Travis McMichael "targeted" Arbery "solely because of his race and murdered him without justification."

"These men were not performing any police function or any duty as a citizen of the state of Georgia," Merritt said at the news conference. "These men were vigilantes. They were a posse. They were performing a lynching in the middle of the day."

He shared a screenshot of a social media post on Instagram, in which a man named Chris Putnam, who identified himself as a former classmate of Travis McMichael, described him as "the very definition of a racist gun-loving redneck."

"I remember plenty of people that were themselves very openly racist and joked about how 'at least [they weren't] Travis.' We all laughed at what a goofy redneck he was and he leaned into it hard," Putnam wrote. "But let's face it: the guy fantasized about something like this happening."

At a news conference in Atlanta, before the McMichaels were arrested, Gov. Brian Kemp said he was confident that investigators would "find the truth."

"Earlier this week, I watched the video depicting Mr. Arbery's last moments alive," he said. "I can tell you it's absolutely horrific, and Georgians deserve answers."

The McMichaels were arrested months after the shooting — and after 2 prosecutors recused themselves

Gregory and Travis McMichael were arrested more than two months after the killing. They have since been denied bond.

Two prosecutors in the area recused themselves before the case landed in the hands of Tom Durden on April 13.

Gregory McMichael worked as an investigator for the Glynn County District Attorney's Office until May 2019. That prompted the recusal of Jackie Johnson, the district attorney from the Brunswick Judicial Circuit.

Records showed that McMichael worked as an investigator for years without the required firearms and deadly force training before it was discovered by Johnson's office, Insider found.

Two Glynn County commissioners — Allen Booker and Peter Murphy — said on Friday that responding officers wanted to arrest the McMichaels, but were blocked by Johnson.

"The police at the scene went to her, saying they were ready to arrest both of them. These were the police at the scene who had done the investigation," Booker told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "She shut them down to protect her friend [Gregory] McMichael."

Murphy added: "They were told not to make the arrest."

But Johnson shot back at the accusations, calling the pairs' claims "baseless and false," WJAX-TV reported. She also denied having conversations with policemen about the Arbery case.

"[This is] an attempt to make excuses and ignore the problems at the Glynn County Police Department, for which they are ultimately responsible," Johnson said.

In a conversation with the Associated Press, Johnson then said that police presented Arbery's shooting as a "burglary case with a self-defense issue," and sought "guidance on how to proceed and whether to make an arrest. Our office could not advise or assist them because of our obvious conflict."

Glynn County's Public Information Officer Matthew Kent, however, later said that the district attorney's office told detectives that the McMichaels didn't need to be arrested because they weren't flight risks. He delivered another volley in the form of details about the timeline of the investigation.

One of the prosecutors argued there were 'no grounds for arrest'

The case was passed off to George Barnhill, the district attorney for the neighboring Waycross Judicial Circuit, but he stepped aside as well because his son also worked for Johnson, he said in a letter to Glynn County Police Capt. Tom Jump and obtained by The New York Times.

In it, Barnhill said that there were "no grounds for an arrest."

The McMichaels were "following, in 'hot pursuit,' a burglary suspect, with solid first-hand probable cause, in their neighborhood, and asking/telling him to stop," he wrote. "It appears their intent was to stop and hold this criminal suspect until law enforcement arrived. Under Georgia Law, this is perfectly legal."

Barnhill's letter also said that Georgia's open-carry law allowed them to be armed since neither is a convicted felon. They were also in a car registered to Travis McMichael.

He also detailed the altercation between Arbery and Travis McMichael, the ensuing shooting, and Arbery's wounds.

"Given the fact Arbery initiated the fight, at the point Arbery grabbed the shotgun, under Georgia Law, McMichael was allowed to use deadly force to protect himself," Barnhill wrote.

The police report said that two shots were fired. While it specified that Travis McMichael fired the first shot, it did not say who fired the second.

"Just as importantly, while we know McMichael had his finger on the trigger, we do not know who caused the firings," Barnhill wrote.

Barnhill identified Bryan as the person who filmed the video of Arbery's killing. He saw the McMichaels when they passed his house, so he got into his car and followed them, later helping to corner Arbery, Dial said.

Reynolds called the footage "a very important piece of evidence" and said the bureau was "investigating everybody involved in the case, including the individual who shot the video," as well as how it was leaked.

Kevin Gough, Bryan's attorney, told CNN that his client has cooperated with authorities, adding that he "disclosed the existence of the videotape, and invited a responding Glynn County Police Officer to sit with him in his truck where they watched the video together."

Bryan has no other connection to the McMichaels, his lawyer said, but has received death threats and lost his job. Reynolds' comments also endangered the lives of Bryan's family, friends, and neighbors, Gough said.

"If he had not videotaped that incident, the only person who really could speak to what happened is dead and we'll never have that opportunity," Gough said of Bryan. "That video is the prosecution."

The New York Times reported that a defense attorney who had consulted with the McMichaels, but will not be representing them, leaked the video to a local radio station, WGIG.

"It wasn't two men with a Confederate flag in the back of a truck going down the road and shooting a jogger in the back," Alan Tucker told the newspaper. "It got the truth out there as to what you could see. My purpose was not to exonerate them or convict them."

Bryan was taken into custody on May 21 on charges of felony murder and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment, the agency said in a statement. Two days prior, GBI agents executed a search warrant at the McMichael residence, but no other details were released by the group.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that Barnhill also penned a letter to Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr in which he wrote that his son, a prosecutor in Johnson's office, and Gregory McMichael "both helped with the previous prosecution of [Ahmaud] Arbery." The letter didn't provide details about the earlier prosecution or when it occurred.

"This family are not strangers to the local criminal justice system," Barnhill wrote. "From best we can tell, [Ahmaud's] older brother has gone to prison in the past and is currently in the Glynn jail, without bond, awaiting new felony prosecution. It also appears a cousin has been prosecuted by DA Johnson's office."

Arbery allegedly brought a gun to a 2013 high school basketball game when he was 19 years old, CNN said. He was indicted and sentenced to five years of probation as a first offender. Then, he violated probation in 2018 and was charged with shoplifting, according to court documents.

However, Merritt said, referring to the "alleged conduct from high school or shoplifting is absurd and has nothing to do with his murder."

"This speaks to the wider issue of mass incarceration. If black people have any kind of criminal record somehow that justifies their murder," he added, AJC reported.

The case ultimately ended up in the hands of state investigators, who made arrests

The GBI investigation into Arbery's death began after Durden, the Atlantic Judicial Circuit district attorney, contacted Reynolds late Tuesday. Less than two days later, the McMichaels were in handcuffs.

ABC News found an additional video of Arbery entering a residential construction site, where he stayed for a few minutes before continuing his run. Investigators are reportedly poring over this footage. The family's attorneys said in a statement, "He stopped by a property under construction where he engaged in no illegal activity and remained for only a brief period. Ahmaud did not take anything from the construction site. He did not cause any damage to the property."

After that video surfaced, a neighbor, Diego Perez, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Arbery and the younger McMichael met at that same unfinished house 12 days before the shooting, where they had a confrontation. Travis McMichael later returned to the spot with his father, Gregory McMichael, who was carrying a gun and called the police, Perez said. The property owner told the AJC that nothing was taken from the construction site.

"All we knew about him was that he was the guy who kept showing up on our cameras. No one knew who it was," he added.

Durden had initially planned to present Arbery's case to the next available grand jury in Glynn County after the coronavirus lockdown is lifted, which may not happen until mid-June or later, as courts in Georgia are prohibited from empaneling juries because of the pandemic.

But the GBI ultimately announced the arrests and charges on May 8.

"This is the first step to justice," Crump said in a statement. "This murderous father and son duo took the law into their own hands. It's a travesty of justice that they enjoyed their freedom for 74 days after taking the life of a young black man who was simply jogging."

On Sunday, State Attorney General Chris Carr announced that he has asked the Department of Justice to conduct a "complete and transparent review of how the Ahmaud Arbery case was handled from the outset," Reuters reported. Of particular interest are the ways Johnson, Barnhill, and the Glynn County Police Department responded to the fatal shooting. The Justice Department is also said to be considering whether to pursue charges of federal hate crimes.

CNN confirmed that information on May 25 after learning from Merritt that he'd been appraised of the development in a May 21 meeting with United States Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia Bobby Christine.

But Barry L. Paschal, a spokesman for Christine's office, said in a statement, "Our office does not discuss active investigations, including addressing whether those investigations are or are not taking place."

GBI also shared that Carr has asked the agency to investigate "possible prosecutorial misconduct" by the offices of Johnson and Barnhill.

"Unfortunately, many questions and concerns have arisen" about the actions of the two district attorneys, Carr said in a statement. That's why, he added, GBI has been tasked with looking into the matter "to determine whether the process was undermined in any way."

But Johnson told the AP, "I'm confident an investigation is going to show my office did what it was supposed to and there was no wrongdoing on our part."

Meanwhile, Merritt said on Monday that a new prosecutor — Cobb County District Attorney Joyette Holmes — has been assigned to Arbery's case at the family's request, First Coast News reported.

On Twitter, Merritt alleged that Atlantic Judicial Circuit DA Durden "sat on the case until video of Ahmaud's murder was leaked," so Holmes represents a "huge WIN" in the family's pursuit for answers. The fourth district attorney to be roped into this closely-watched case is currently being vetted for conflicts of interest, he added.

Later the same day, Carr told NBC News that the video of Arbery's shooting left him "stunned" and "sickened."

"When you see things like that, the first thing I thought was 'that's not my Georgia,'" he said. "That's not who we are."

"It's important for us to find out what happened and make sure justice is done," Carr added.

In an interview with TMZ on Tuesday, Cooper-Jones threw her support behind the death penalty for the McMichaels.

The outlet's founder Harvey Levin noted that capital punishment is legal in Georgia where prosecutors have "discretion depending on certain circumstances." He asked Cooper-Jones what consequence she felt would be adequate for the men who killed her child.

"Coming from my point of view, my son died, so they should die as well," she replied. Pressed on the matter, Cooper-Jones added that she "would totally agree" with the death penalty being sought in Travis and Gregory McMichael's case.

Demands for justice for Arbery mount

The lack of justice in the months since Arbery's death has led to protests.

After the video of Arbery's death went online on May 5, more than 100 people carried signs and prayed in the streets where Arbery died, WJAX-TV, a CBS affiliate in Jacksonville, Florida, reported.

Glynn County Sheriff Neal Jump was among those who expressed their anguish at the situation.

"Am I upset that it has taken this long for a verdict or the justice part to come? As the sheriff, I am upset," he said at the protest. "It shouldn't have taken that long. If that was my son, I'd be upset. I can only imagine what the mother and dad is going through."

The case is being closely watched across the nation.

President Donald Trump offered condolences to the Arbery family and addressed the case on Fox News, saying, "I saw the tape, and it's very, very disturbing."

"It's a heartbreaking thing. It's very rough, rough stuff," he said, adding: "Justice getting done is the thing that solves that problem. And again, it's in the hands of the governor, and I'm sure he'll do the right thing."

Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, also spoke out on Arbery's behalf, while the NBA star LeBron James expressed anguish that people of color were "literally hunted everyday."

James Woodall, the president of the Georgia NAACP, said in a statement that "the modern-day lynching of Mr. Arbery is yet another reminder of the vile and wicked racism that persists in parts of our country."

He also castigated Johnson's and Barnhill's display of "slothfulness and inaction," adding that the NAACP was pushing for both to be removed from office.

For some in the black community, Arbery's death struck a different note — one of racial terror, according to AP.

It reminded them of the 1955 kidnapping and lynching of Emmett Till, a black 14-year-old from Chicago, who was ultimately tossed in a river amid false allegations of whistling at a white woman. The white men who killed Till were acquitted by an all-white jury.

A protester, Anthony Johnson, told the AP he believes Arbery "died because he was black like the rest of them did. For no reason."

Arbery's case has fueled widespread anger.

The supermodel Padma Lakshmi had tweeted the Glynn County Police Department's phone number so people could demand that Gregory and Travis McMichael be taken into custody.

A Change.org petition seeking #JusticeForAhmaud amassed hundreds of thousands of signatures.

And the hashtag #IRunWithMaud trended on social media, with thousands of people signing up to run 2.23 miles — marking the day of Arbery's death.

In an op-ed article in The New York Times, the columnist Charles Blow lamented the way laws in the United States worked toward "black people's detriment and sometimes their demise" but protected people like Travis and Gregory McMichael and George Zimmerman, who shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in February 2012.

"It is men like these, with hot heads and cold steel, these with yearnings of heroism, the vigilantes who mask vengeance as valor, who ­cross their social anxiety with racial anxiety and the two spark like battery cables," Blow wrote. "Arbery was enjoying a nice run on a beautiful day when he began to be stalked by armed men.

"What must that have felt like?" he wondered, adding, "What must he have thought as he collapsed to the ground and could feel the life leaving his body?"

Rosie Perper, Haven Orecchio-Egresitz, Jacob Shamsian, and Sarah Al-Arshani contributed to this report.

This article has been updated.

• Read more:
• Travis McMichael used a racist slur just after Ahmaud Arbery was shot, according to the person who filmed the encounter
• Investigators who arrested a father and son in connection with the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery say 'probable cause was clear to our agents pretty quickly'
• Gregory and Travis McMichael arrested in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, who was shot dead while jogging unarmed in Georgia
• 2 men were arrested in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery. The attorney for Arbery's father says if it were Arbery and his father who killed a white jogger they would have been arrested on the spot.
• Family and friends of shooting victim Ahmaud Arbery are honoring his life with a 2.23-mile run after public outrage over his death led to 2 arrests
• LeBron James enraged by the shooting death of an unarmed 25-year-old black man in southern Georgia, says: 'We're literally hunted everyday'