NEW YORK. Gregory and Travis McMichael, father and son, found guilty in November for the death of Ahmaud Arbery, the 25-year-old African American who was chased and killed on February 23, 2020 while jogging in South Georgia, were sentenced to life imprisonment plus 20 years. by the Superior Court of Georgia. Both were forbidden to ask for parole. Their neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, who had filmed the shooting scene with his cell phone, was also given a life sentence but will be able to ask for a parole. Arbery’s murder sparked protests and violence in Georgia.
The three defendants “showed no repentance” in hunting down and killing – “in such a shocking way” – a defenseless 25-year-old boy, who was going off on his own, jogging. It is the strongest passage of the sentence with which Judge Timothy R. Walmsley sentenced Travis McMichael, 35, the murderer, his father Gregory McMichael, 66, who had participated in the “hunt”, and William Bryan, 52 years old. , the neighbor who had followed the McMicels and filmed the moment of the murder with his cell phone. The three were found guilty on November 24, 2021 for the death of Ahmaud Arbery, the 25-year-old African American runner, who was killed in Satilla Shore on February 23, 2020, after being mistaken for a thief by three white men.
Before the sentence handed down by the judge, the victim’s family had spoken. Jasmine Arbery, the boy’s sister, recalled, through tears, how “the future had been taken away from a smiling person who loved to run”. Her mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, had recalled the “hardest chapter” of her life. «My son – she had said – I love you so much, even more today, I am proud of you. None of these three men showed remorse, they chose to hit my son because they wanted to hit our community. And when they realized they couldn’t scare him, or intimidate him, they killed him. He was radiant, he has always been a love. These men deserve the maximum punishment. ” Before reading the sentence, the judge referred several times to the “disturbing video” of the boy’s killing, which became the indictment of the sentence. Without those images, in the absence of witnesses, shot by one of the three, there probably wouldn’t have been a trial either.