The Ahmaud Arbery shooting I noted in April is now going national. CNN aired a video of the fatal confrontation, the case is going to a grand jury and Joe Biden is demanding justice. Now both sides (all sides?) get to grab their scripts and we can fight over whether Ahmaud Arbery is Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, or someone else entirely. Any chance he's Ahmaud Arbery and this case doesn't fit a template? Naah.
As is so often the case, the vdeo shows what people want it to show. This is CNN:
Elements of the disturbing video are consistent with a description of the shooting given to police by one of those involved in the incident.
In a separate document, [local prosecutor] Mr. Barnhill stated that video exists of Mr. Arbery “burglarizing a home immediately preceding the chase and confrontation.” In the letter to the police, he cites a separate video of the shooting filmed by a third pursuer.
Mr. Barnhill said this video, which has not been made public, shows Mr. Arbery attacking Travis McMichael after he and his father pulled up to him in their truck.
The video shows Mr. Arbery trying to grab the shotgun from Travis McMichael’s hands, Mr. Barnhill wrote. And that, he argued, amounts to self-defense under Georgia law. Travis McMichael, Mr. Barnhill concluded, “was allowed to use deadly force to protect himself.”
Where did that take the local prosecutor?
Mr. Barnhill also wrote that he did not believe there was evidence of a crime, noting that Gregory McMichael and his son had been legally carrying their weapons under Georgia law. And because Mr. Arbery was a “burglary suspect,” the pursuers, who had “solid firsthand probable cause,” were justified in chasing him under the state’s citizen’s arrest law.
It's all good!
I'm just a tired old Yankee who is losing patience with this bullshit. Arbery was not jogging down the street carrying a television. And if he was, you're going to shoot him because of it? Why? No one was being kidnapped, no one was being raped, no one was being assaulted - what about this suggested it was a deadly force situation?
Or if these vigilantes were gunned up out of fear that the jogger might be armed, well, if the situation is that dangerous just take a deep breath and let it go. I don't care how legal this shooting was, it was stupid and quite likely the law is stupid as well.
Now yes, Arbery should not have attacked, as the video suggests he did. Legally that may be exculpatory but I'm not even sure why that is a defense. What, the vigilante plan was to show up with a shotgun to arrest a guy who, they hoped, would be calm and act responsibly? Just how did they picture this unfolding if the jogger was terrified, hopped up on drugs, had anger management issues, had mental health issues, or whatever? The plan was what - if he's a sensible citizen they'll arrest him, otherwise they'll shoot him? Come on, man.
These vigilantes faced a situation where no one was at risk of physical harm and turned it into a situation that had a high potential for disaster. And that's what they got. There ought to be consequences for cranial-anal impaction.
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