A resident who lives in the same South Georgia community as three white men accused of committing hate crimes against Ahmaud Arbery testified on Tuesday that he saw no one trying to help Arbery after he was shot twice with a shotgun. Daniel Alcott, whose front yard was closest to where Arbery was killed, testified that he heard three loud bangs on Feb. 23, 2020, hurried to get his wife and baby to safety, then returned outside to see police talking to a man he now knows as William "Roddie" Bryan, WSB radio reported.
Bryan recorded Arbery’s death and was convicted of murdering him along with Travis McMichael, the man who fired the gun, and his father, former prosecutorial investigator Gregory McMichael. Alcott testified that he recognized Travis and Greg and noticed after the shooting that Travis was sitting off to the side while Greg was standing next to a white truck. Alcott said no one was tending to Arbery. He “did see a police officer kneeling down, but that was about it,” Alcott testified in proceedings covered by WSB’s Veronica Waters.
Updates will be added as the trial continues. Jump below the fold for more information on the trial to date.
Alcott said his family no longer lives in Satilla Shores, where Arbery was killed just outside Alcott’s home. “The house didn’t feel the same,” he said. He said he felt guilty that Arbery was killed just outside his home, and one day he allowed Arbery's family to erect a memorial in his yard.
Arbery, 25, was shot to death after the McMichaels accused the former high school football standout of trespassing onto a home under construction in the South Georgia neighborhood. Arbery was jogging at the time.
Bryan and the McMichaels were each charged with one count of interference with rights and with one count of attempted kidnapping, according to an announcement of their federal indictment.
Officials stated in a news release:
Travis and Gregory McMichael were also charged with one count each of using, carrying, and brandishing—and in Travis’s case, discharging—a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence.
Counts One and Two of the indictment allege that the defendants used force and threats of force to intimidate and interfere with Arbery’s right to use a public street because of his race. Specifically, Count One of the indictment alleges that as Arbery was running on a public street in the Satilla Shores neighborhood of Brunswick, Georgia, Travis and Gregory McMichael armed themselves with firearms, got into a truck, and chased Arbery through the public streets of the neighborhood while yelling at him, using their truck to cut off his route, and threatening him with firearms. Count One also alleges that the offense resulted in Arbery’s death. Count Two alleges that William “Roddie” Bryan joined the chase and used his truck to cut off Arbery’s route.
In addition to the hate-crime charges, Count Three alleges that all three defendants attempted to unlawfully seize and confine Arbery by chasing after him in their trucks in an attempt to restrain him, restrict his free movement, corral and detain him against his will, and prevent his escape. Counts Four and Five allege that during the course of the crime of violence charged in Count One, Travis used, carried, brandished, and discharged a Remington shotgun, and Gregory used, carried, and brandished a .357 Magnum revolver.
At one point in Alcott's testimony, the prosecution asked him his race, whether he ever ran in the McMichaels’ presence, and whether his running ever led the father and son to accuse Alcott of a crime and chase him in a truck. Alcott, a white man, testified that was not his experience.
Matt Albenze, who has lived in Satilla Shores 32 years, was next on the stand, according to WSB radio. He testified that he saw Arbery twice on security camera footage of the property under construction and Albenze called the Glynn County police's non-emergency line when he saw Arbery there the second time. "It seemed suspicious," Albenze said, also adding that he didn't consider it an emergency. “It was just a fella in a house," Albenze said.
The prosecution is working to prove Arbery was more than that to the McMichaels. The federal government said in opening statements Waters covered on Monday that Travis called Black people animals, criminals, monkeys, and subhuman savages. The prosecutor read a message reportedly from Travis to a friend claiming that Travis loved his job as a contractor because "zero n-----s” work with him. Travis allegedly said in the message: “They ruin everything. That’s why I love what I do now, not a n----r in sight."
His father reportedly said of former Georgia state Rep. Julien Bond’s death that he wished he’d “been put in the ground years ago.”
“He’s nothing but trouble,” Gregory said, according to the prosecution. “Those Blacks are nothing but trouble.”
Attorney Gerald Griggs, who isn’t involved in the federal trial, told the Black News Channel that the defendants’ sentiments about Black people and the words they uttered over Arbery’s dying body will “for the first time cast a full picture of what happened in the Satilla Shores neighborhood.”
“This is going to be a very tough case to listen to,” Griggs said.
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