Trayvon Martin comes to mind. An armed man, in this case two men, in a vehicle pursues a black man because he looks suspicious.
“Gregory McMichael told police he and his son, Travis, saw Arbery running and believed he was a burglary suspect. McMichael said the two armed themselves and pursued Arbery in their truck. The two told police Arbery attacked them after one of them got out of the truck with a shotgun.”
It took 2 months for the police to detain the father and son shooters. How long would it have taken for police to arrest two black men shooting a white jogger?
Nanoseconds would have been considered too long.
Race relations have improved since Emmett Till was tortured, killed and dumped in a river for supposedly whistling at a white woman. No doubt.
Towns don’t turn out for lynchings with picnic baskets and cameras. But to ignore the fact that there is definitely a seamy undercurrent of white supremacy is an act of denial. Centuries of apartheid enforced by law and terror do not disappear from a culture in just a generation or two.
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
If there is any justice to be had in Georgia, neither of these two miscreants will ever walk free again. But get ready for it. “Conservative” media and Fox News will soon be looking for dirt on the victim and will be sure to let us know every time he was cited for jaywalking.
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A second video has surfaced showing Arbery entering an unoccupied house under construction and then leaving 3 minutes later.
Nothing was there to steal and no damage was reported, but the actions were suspicious and had been called in to police.
That, however, is not justification for a citizens arrest, though it would be sufficient for the police to stop him for questioning had they waited for the police to arrive instead of taking it into their own hands.
They quite certainly should go to prison.
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@Tabor
The “actions were suspicious.” Bullshit. Who hasn’t stopped while out for a walk or run to see what was being built and how it was coming along. You want to pretend that racism is not in play but if you or I had stopped to check out such a project for three minutes, nobody would be calling the cops on us. We are white.
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Again, a third party, not involved in the shooting, was suspicious enough to have called the police.
But as I wrote, the police would have been justified in stopping him for questioning based on that call. The McMichaels were not.
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@Tabor
You are deliberately missing the point. That call would NOT have been made if you or I or any white person stopped for a minute or two to check out a house under construction. That call IS evidence of the obvious role of racism in this tragedy which, for no rational reason, you insist on denying.
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In a neighborhood which had recently seen a string of burglaries, a white person entering a house where he had no business most certainly would draw a call to the police. It would be just as racist to presume a white person acting suspiciously was OK
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I don’t believe the neighborhood had a “string of burglaries”.
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/ny-no-burglaries-reported-for-weeks-before-ahmaud-arbery-killing-20200508-6pp35kjezbeszckj4hwvf2h4be-story.html
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@Tabor
“It would be just as racist to presume a white person acting suspiciously was OK”
Well, yeah. Duh!
Of course the point is that there is nothing suspicious about someone stopping a jog for a few minutes to look at a construction project and then jogging on. Whether they are white or black.
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They didn’t stop him. They SHOT him. How do you even attempt to justify it?
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I don’t justify it.
I would have justified the police stopping him for questioning but I have consistently said they did not have just cause to attempt a citizen’s arrest.
That said, they did attempt to stop him, Aubrey chose to grapple for the shotgun instead of waiting for the police to arrive.
Even so, they initiated the confrontation and Aubrey likely thought he was acting in self defense in trying to take the gun.
That’s why you don’t initiate a potentially deadly confrontation. If you do, whatever happens is your fault.
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…”Aubrey likely thought he was acting in self defense in trying to take the gun.”
THOUGHT he was acting in self defense? Are you kidding? Two white guys get out of a car and approach you (a BLACK man) with a shotgun and its only a “thought”?
And who exactly called the police in order to “wait for them to arrive”? Your logic is so pretzely, it is unfathomable for a reasonable man to think anything but “WTF?”
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I really do wish you would not put me in the position of having to defend the McMichaels, as they are at fault, but truth is truth.
If it had been McMichaels intent to simply execute Aubrey, he would have fired before Aubrey got close enough to grab the gun. He could have put up his hands and waited for the police.
Once he put his hands on the gun, someone was going to be shot.
He may have thought that was his best choice, and McMichaels is at fault for putting him in that position, but that didn’t work out well.
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Fighting for your life is the only choice. If you are a young black man and two ARMED white men approach you you basically only have two choices. Run and get shot in the back or two try to remove the weapon and defend yourself.
No one called the police. Even the gentleman who videoed the crime did not stop recording to call 911. His lawyer tried to defend that lack of action last night in an interview on CNN. My jaw dropped to the floor.
I believe that if Mr. Wynn, the video shooter, had done his civic duty and immediately called the police, the arrests would have come much sooner than AFTER the video was released for the public to view.
Victim blaming is shameful in ANY instance.
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It is my understanding that the person who took the other video, showing Aubrey entering the construction site, had called the police.
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Cite and when?
The reason I ask is that most construction site video cameras are not monitored 24-7. So, unless the video was being watched in real time, how could the police have been called by someone watching a tape and not in real time?
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I believe the video was from a residential camera across the street from the construction site. It is hard to find the subject as he is so small and the video is a bit time lapsed.
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The indoor camera at the site was certainly a security camera, but it was preceded by an exterior shot from a distance that appears hand held.
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I think the other video is from a stationary camera at a residence across the street from the construction site.
A point of additional interest is that police records do not show any burglary reports except for a stolen gun from an unlocked vehicle in front of the McMichael’s home. And that was filed January 1, 7 weeks before the murder.
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…”a third party, not involved in the shooting,”…
Could the “third party” have been the individual who shot the cell phone video WE eventually saw?
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@Tabor
“Aubrey chose to grapple for the shotgun instead of waiting for the police to arrive.”
There you go again. Blaming the victim. Reminds me of your response to the murder of Trayvon Martin.
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Is that not true?
Had Aubrey succeeded in taking the gun and killed McMichaels instead, would you be blaming the victim?
Most shootings that result from a confrontation could have been avoided by EITHER party.
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Georgia is a stand your ground state. Had Arbrey succeeded in taking the gun he could have shot both McMichaels and been justified…legally. His life was in great danger and he had no obligation to back down.
Of course, being black, being legally right may not be enough.
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That’s not what “stand your ground” means.
It would have been self defense in any state, under ordinary self defense.
We discussed this back during the Treyvon Martin episode
http://tinyurl.com/sygandsd
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@Tabor
“Had Aubrey succeeded in taking the gun and killed McMichaels instead, would you be blaming the victim?”
Uh, Yes I would. Wouldn’t you?
If you are a young black man with two repellent white men chasing you with a truck and drawing down on you – one with a shotgun in your face and the other standing in the back of the truck aiming a pistol at you – it is not so easy to stay cool as you suggest.
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Whether Arbery was indeed a burglar or not, a citizen’s arrest is only justified if you see the person commit a felony yourself, which the shooters clearly did not.
However, presuming the delay to be the result of generalized racism in the area is just as much a rush to judgment.
It is more likely a simple matter of personal trust. The elder McMichael was known to the DA and had worked as an investigator in that office. It appears that the prosecutor gave McMichael the benefit of the doubt until the video surfaced showing there had been no immediate justification.
Poor judgment on the part of the DA, but certainly not justification for accusing the entire locality of racism.
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“gave McMichael the benefit of the doubt“ ??? “Poor judgement” ???
Are you fucking kidding me? If it was a child of your’s would you be so blasé?
It is clearly systemic of the local law enforcement, if not the community.
However, the “locality” has the responsibility to fix it…
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The local police went to the DA immediately.
I see no general failure of law enforcement, only on the part of the DA, based on McMichael’s previous employment in law enforcement by the DA’s office.
Again, tarring local law enforcement, or the locality overall, with the DAs delay is not justified, nor is it justified to presume even the DA was motivated by racism and not his personal relationship with the shooter.
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Yes, the local police brought “their” versions of events to the DA who had a clear conflict of interest.
The system(read “systematic) was perfectly fine with taking NO action relative to a murder in broad daylight.
You have significant skills when it comes to cherry picking and spin, have fun, but the ugly facts will not change…
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@Tabor
So predictable.
Racism? In Podunk, Georgia? Outrageous suggestion! And just because a young black man was chased, accosted and gunned down while out for a run and the two white perps were not incarcerated for two months.
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Your bigotry against the rural South is showing.
There is no evidence at hand that racism played in part in the DA’s decision, and on the contrary, much to support it was based on their prior personal relationship.
Your presumption that race was the basis reflects only your prejudices.
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My folks are from Mississippi, since that seems to matter.
“Race” was involved in the murder.
And “race” (white) was involved in the cover-up.
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@Tabor
Bigotry against the rural South? That accusation presumes some sort of ignorance.
Nope. I went to high school in Podunk Georgia. My maternal grandparents were native Georgians. My mother was Georgia born and raised. I know what Georgia is like. It is still dominated by white racists. It is one of the few states with no hate crime statute on the books. And it is a state where a black man cannot safely go for a jog without some white racist calling the cops.
But most importantly, I am not blind to racism as you obviously are. You excoriate a black man for taking a knee to protest EXACTLY this kind of racial injustice while defending a mob of heavily armed white men storming the state capital. Hell, you even claim that Trump’s birtherism is not racist. That’s how far from reality your head is on this subject.
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@ Murphy
So, even though there is an alternate explanation, that of a personal and professional relationship, you presume with no evidence, to read the mind and heart of the DA.
And of the law enforcement community,
And of the community as a whole.
That is pretty much the definition of prejudice.
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@Tabor
Your attempted jujitsu is failing miserably.
This is not an isolated instance. It happens to people who are not white all the time.
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In that town, with that police force, has it even happened before with that DA?
If not, then you are prejudging those people.
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@Tabor
Prejudge? What are we waiting for in order to post judge?
No evidence? Good grief. What would be evidence? Two known killers NOT charged for a heinous crime until a public outcry demanded action. And what is your non-racist explanation – Good old boys give each other a pass? Yeah, that makes it alright. Sure.
Not in that town? In THAT town THAT prosecutor brought felony charges against a black grandmother for the “crime” of showing a young black woman who had asked for her help how to use an electronic voting machine. But two white men who gunned down a stranger (THREE blasts from that shotgun) are not charged?
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I STRONGLY suggest you review Nancy_Naive’s post at the end of this thread.
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Those boys weren’t arrested because the GBI saw the video. They were arrested because WE saw the video.
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Mic DROPPED!
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