Father, Son Charged In Shooting Death Of Black Georgia Jogger

SAVANNAH, GA — Georgia authorities arrested a father and son Thursday and charged them with murder in connection with the February shooting death of an unarmed black man they had pursued in a truck after spotting him running in their neighborhood.

The charges came more than two months after Ahmaud Arbery, 25, was killed on a residential street just outside the port city of Brunswick and three days after Tom Durden, a prosecutor for Georgia's Atlantic Judicial Circuit, announced the case would go to a grand jury.

Former police officer Gregory McMichael, 64, and his 34-year-old son, Travis McMichael, have both been jailed on charges of murder and aggravated assault, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Arbery was jogging through his Satilla Shores neighborhood around 1 p.m. Feb. 23 when he was chased down and killed by two white men, his family said. Neither McMichael nor Travis were immediately charged after the shooting.

McMichael told the Glynn County Police Department, where he had been a police officer for several years, that he suspected Arbery of burglary, according to the New Brunswick News.

Graphic video of the confrontation, shot from inside a vehicle, shows Arbery jogging when he came upon a white truck. The younger man was standing beside an open driver's-side door as the older man stood in the bed, armed with a pistol. In a confrontation with the younger man, three shotgun blasts were heard, and Arbery stumbled to the pavement.

He was pronounced dead at the scene.

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Civil rights activists and others have condemned the shooting in a case that has been simmering for months. National outrage only swelled after the video became widely circulated this week.

Andrea Young, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, said in a statement that Arbery was killed for being a black man "running through the wrong neighborhood at the wrong time."

"The vigilante behavior that we saw in Brunswick is unacceptable in a civilized society," Young said prior to Thursday's arrests. "We call on the officials in Brunswick to enforce the rule of law so that it can be safe for citizens to walk the streets."

At a news conference before the arrests were announced Thursday, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp told reporters he was confident state investigators would “find the truth.”

“Earlier this week, I watched the video depicting Mr. Arbery’s last moments alive,” Kemp told a news conference in Atlanta. “I can tell you it’s absolutely horrific, and Georgians deserve answers.”