By Jonathan Allen
BRUNSWICK, Ga. (Reuters) – One of the three white men on trial for murdering Ahmaud Arbery told a detective that as they chased the Black jogger around their southern Georgia neighborhood Arbery realized “he was not going to get away,” a jury heard on Wednesday.
Gregory McMichael, 65; his son Travis McMichael, 35; and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan, 52, have pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, aggravated assault and false imprisonment. They face life in prison if convicted on the most serious charge by the mostly white jury.
The men say they thought Arbery might have been fleeing from a crime when he ran through Satilla Shores on a Sunday afternoon in February 2020. They pursued him in pickup trucks for several minutes before the younger McMichael pointed a shotgun at Arbery, firing at Arbery as he ran toward him and reached toward the weapon.
Here are some important moments from the fourth day of witness testimony in Glynn County Superior Court:
RODERIC NOHILLY, DETECTIVE WITH GLYNN COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT:
In an interview at police headquarters soon after the shooting, Gregory McMichael told Roderic Nohilly, a county detective, that he “had never laid eyes” on Arbery before he ran past the McMichaels’ driveway, according to a transcript.
Nohilly told the jury he had known McMichael for years: the defendant had previously worked at the local prosecutor’s office, and would sometimes come by the police station to drop off paperwork.
The detective asked McMichael why he was chasing the man, who still had not been identified at that point: “Did this guy break into a house today?”
“Well that’s just it, I don’t know,” McMichael replied, according to the transcript. Nohilly read excerpts from the transcript aloud in court in response to questions from prosecutor Linda Dunikoski.
Prosecutors from the Cobb County district attorney’s office are seeking to undermine the defense argument that the three men were trying to make a citizen’s arrest under a state law that was subsequently repealed.
“He was trapped like a rat,” McMichael told the detective. “I think he was wanting to flee and he realized that you know he was not going to get away.”
Prosecutors have noted the sometimes sympathetic treatment McMichael and the other defendants received from the officers and detectives on the scene that day, most of whom are also white.
Nohilly told McMichael that Arbery “could have run around your son.”
“From what I can tell in the video, I mean: the whole road is there,” Nohilly said in the interview.
McMichael agreed, according to the transcript.
“He was much faster than Travis would ever be,” he told the detective. “He had opportunity to flee further. You know, we had chased him around the neighborhood a bit but he wasn’t winded at all. I mean, this guy, he was in good shape.”
(Reporting by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Alistair Bell)
