Truth.
And that's the problem with America today. The law doesn't work equally for everyone.
Actually it wasn’t the color of the person shot. It was the person, or should I say family of the man doing the shooting.
Greg’s first call from the scene was to his old boss. The Elected District Attorney Jackie Johnson. He asked her for help and advice in the matter.
The police took the McMichaels to the station to get a statement. After doing so they believed they had enough for an arrest. Jackie Johnson told them not to. She said she wanted to examine the case and they were not a flight risk, don’t arrest them.
As she examined the files she realized it was a shitstorm, and it had to be handled but she couldn’t risk it. She passed it off to another District Attorney, in violation of procedure for such things, and asked him to take care of it.
Jackie is facing her own trial for Prosecutorial Misconduct because of what she did for Greg, and her instructions to the police. The Second DA is also facing challenges to his law license because of his actions.
Now, it wasn’t the color of the man getting shot. It was all about taking care of their own. In some areas, it’s called the network. In other areas, it’s called the thin blue line, or the brotherhood. Down in Brunswick, it’s called the Good Old Boy’s club. The Good Old Boys take care of each other. It is how corruption and all that has always worked. Glynn County is notorious for it. In fact, the State has arrested several cops for doing it. The police in the county were notorious for such corruptions.
I’ve written several times that every decision made by the McMichaels that day was the wrong one. From the initial decision to pursue Arbery, to the events afterwards. Every decision was the dumb one. After the shooting the smart move would have been to tell the cops you ain’t saying shit without an attorney. Instead Greg activated the Good Old Boy’s network. And it might have worked.
Might have but he made another dumb choice. He decided to release the video. The powers that be were looking for a rug big enough to sweep the mess under. Once the video was out, the story was bound to come out. A lot of questions and the answers would not work anymore. That’s when the finger pointing began.
The cops who were probably just as happy not to arrest a fellow cop and his son were pointing fingers at the DA. The DA was pointing fingers at the cops and the other DA who wrote a letter saying it looked like self defense. He was pointing fingers at Jackie Johnson and the cops saying the information he got was incomplete.
Then the GBI showed up, and took over, and the whole sorry mess couldn’t fit under a rug anymore if the rug was big enough to cover the County.
Lots of people are in trouble, because they didn’t do what they were supposed to do.
It wasn’t that Arbery was black. It was that Greg was a Good Old Boy. And that extended to his son, to an extent. But once the video was released by Greg, to silence the whispers, it was all over but the crying.
Every decision Greg and Travis made that day was the dumb choice. And they weren’t alone.