They are dead to rights.
While the defense portrayed the fatal shooting as ‘self-defense,’ the prosecution took the contrary position that it was the victim, Ahmaud Arbery, who had been under attack. Our reporters are sending news from the courthouse.
www.nytimes.com
The prosecution’s assertion that none of the men had immediate knowledge that a crime was committed appears to be in anticipation of the likelihood that the defense will argue that the men were making a legal arrest under Georgia’s citizen’s arrest law, which was largely repealed by the state legislature after widespread outcry over Mr. Arbery’s killing. That law previously stated that a private person may arrest someone “if the offense is committed in his presence or within his immediate knowledge.”
Ms. Dunikoski also described in detail how the two McMichaels and the third defendant, their neighbor William Bryan, chased Mr. Arbery for five minutes as he ran through their neighborhood, trying to evade them — the McMichaels in one pickup truck and Mr. Bryan in another. She said that in the midst of the chase, Travis McMichael stopped and asked Mr. Arbery, “Where you running from? What are you doing?” Mr. Arbery ignored him.
At some point during the pursuit, she said, Gregory McMichael, who was armed with a handgun, said to Mr. Arbery, “Stop or I’ll blow your ******* head off,” language, she said, that indicated an intent to harm Mr. Arbery, not simply talk to him.
She said that Mr. Bryan tried to hit Mr. Arbery four times with his pickup truck, at one point forcing him into a ditch.
And Ms. Dunikoski played the video that Mr. Bryan recorded on his cellphone, showing the moments when the two trucks had pinned Mr. Arbery in. She said that Gregory McMichael later claimed that Mr. Arbery had been “trapped like a rat.”