Prosecutor Dunikoski ran down the list of charges against the McMichaels and Bryan, asking jurors to carefully consider each. The men are charged with malice and felony murder, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, and criminal attempt to commit a felony.
Recreating the Feb. 23 shooting, Dunikoski told jurors how the start of the aggravated assault began with Travis McMichael aiming his shotgun at Arbery, and then continued when Travis blocked the road.
“He said he was putting distance between himself and Arbery, but he doesn’t stay right there. We can’t see it, but he makes it around that car door, makes it to the front of his truck, and is moving forward, closing the distance on Arbery, intercepting him,” Dunikoski said. “And there he is, with that shotgun, [not across his chest pointed skyward] but pointed at Arbery.”
Arbery came around the corner and “boom,” Dunikoski said.
“That’s one. That’s continued aggravated assault, one blast to his torso,” she continued, noting how medical examiners documented that when Arbery was shot, his wrist was also across his stomach, pointing in a direction indicating that he was already turning away when McMichael fired.
When the men cornered Arbery, Dunikoski asked jurors to consider whether Arbery would be alive today if he was not pinned between McMichael’s and Bryan’s pick-up trucks.
“Would he still be alive? Yeah. Their use of pick-up trucks to put him in fear, meaning that he was running away from him,” she said.
And this pinning of Arbery by the trucks was false imprisonment, she argued.
Greg McMichael in a recorded interview with police after the shooting said that they had Arbery “trapped like a rat.”
“I think he was wanting to flee and he realized that something, you know, he was not going to get away,” Greg McMichael said in the earlier interview.
Moving on, the prosecution worked to poke holes in the defense’s argument that McMichaels and Bryan were all acting reasonably.
“Travis McMichael’s belief that he had to defend himself with reasonable force, has to be reasonable,” Dunikoski said before again, reminding jurors how Arbery was unarmed.
“Put on your critical thinking caps, use your common sense. The amount of force has to be reasonable. An unarmed man running with hands at the sides, never pulled out a weapon, never threatened anybody. This is completely excessive force. Even if you think this was self-defense, you still have to believe that what they did wasn’t excessive force,” she said.
Was there justification for self-defense by the defendants? Dunikoski urged there was not.
“The defendants wanted to stop [Ahmaud Arbery] and wanted him to talk to them. He wouldn’t. So they forced him to stop and when he wouldn’t, they killed him,” Dunikoski said.
A 15-minute recess followed after the prosecution concluded its final argument.
Monday, Nov 22, 2021 · 2:40:02 PM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman