Travis McMichael says in his murder trial that he felt threatened by Ahmaud Arbery

At an armed road block? What would you think of someone did that to you? They may want to kidnap and beat the crap out of you and dump you in some river somewhere. I definitely wouldn’t trust someone setting up a road block on me.

 

Am I trying to run away because I do not want to stick around for police to show up, when some people in the neighborhood (which is not my own) obviously suspect me of something?

People that I wouldn't even stop to talk to.

People that I know could have already easily shot me with their guns or run me over if they had wanted to kill me.

I agree this was a difficult situation where the rights of two different sides come into conflict, but Arbery was not acting very well in his response.

 

I tend to agree here. The police should be the go to call in a case like this. Let them investigate if dude was stealing. Clearly, these three's actions put any possible justice for the developer or home owner in jeopardy. I just can't see any jury accepting "self defense" when you, with a gun, were threatening someone else.

 

Defendant 1 - Guilty on all nine counts, including malice murder

Defendant 2 - Guilty of felony murder and all other charges.

Defendant 3 - Guilty of three counts felony murder, one count aggravated assault, false imprisonment, and criminal attempt to commit a felony

Ahmaud Arbery trial verdict: All three suspects found guilty of murder
https://nypost.com/2021/11/24/travis-mcmichael-found-guilty-in-ahmaud-arbery-trial/

All three men face life in prison.

 

You have got to be f'ing kidding me. You are blaming Arbery for some part of what happened? This only shows that you cannot relate to being a black person in Georgia, who gets chased, by armed men, for merely jogging. The words of McMichael, to the 911 operator, as to the cause for his call: " A black man running down my street..." Substitute the word "white," or 'Asian," for black, and tell me you can imagine the same call, and the same assumptions, which you mirror--

kazenatsu said: ↑
And we still don't know for certain that Arbery didn't do what they suspected him of.

Of course this isn't proof of guilt, but it was a little strange that he was in that neighborhood, since he didn't know anyone there, it was far away from where he lived.
<End Quote>

-- or the same denouement. BTW, Arbery was jogging, on his regular route, as far as I am aware. Even though the men had not seen him before, if you have ever seen someone jogging, "he's running from a home break-in," is not the first thing that would come into any reasonable, non-bigoted, person's mind. Do you really think they would have made the same assumption, had the jogger been an unfamiliar white guy? In short, it is outrageous that you would suggest that there was a significant chance that Arbery was running from a crime scene.

 

Justice.

 

Like Rittenhouse felt threatened by the one guy armed with his fists?? or another one armed with a skateboard????

 

It is similar to that case. Guess rittenhouse could afford top lawyers but the three guys couldnt. Its not about guilty or innocent in western court cases, its who has the most money to buy innocence. Its all totally corrupt but thats democracy for you.

 

At that specific point, Travis's truck was standing still and Travis was standing right near his Truck. Arbery was running towards the direction of Travis. After going around the other opposite side of the truck, Arbery then ran at Travis, ran directly towards him, and very likely put his hands on the gun before he was shot.

I do not think so.

Two threads have been posted about that here:
A Miscarriage of Justice
Three men who chased Arbery sentenced to life in prison

Some will will undoubtedly try to argue that "Arbery was being chased by men with guns". But there is not really any solid evidence that Arbery was being intimidated by guns in an illegal way before that point in the chase. So the claim that he was "being chased by men with guns" seems to be disingenuous and somewhat misleading, even if technically true in a literal way.

To emphasize again, Travis's truck was not moving, and Arbery was running towards the direction of the truck, when the guns were used to intimidate Arbery.

 

Travis stopped his truck while Arbery was still running away from the direction of his truck. But there was another truck very far ahead of Arbery that had circled back around. So at that point Arbery realized there were trucks in both directions, and turned back around towards the direction of Arbery's truck, which had already stopped at that point.

It doesn't seem clear that Travis specifically intended to create a roadblock, although that is what his actions did. They were trying to keep Arbery away from getting close to the truck, because Travis had already stepped outside the truck and the driver's door was open. The truck was stopped in the right lane, and Travis moved away towards the left of the road - he claimed because he wanted to move away from Arbery's path as Arbery seemed to be running towards the direction of the middle of the road. But Travis also did not want to move too far away from the open driver's side door of the truck, for fear that Arbery might get in it. But this pretty much ended up blocking the path in the road for Arbery, causing Arbery to turn and go right, along the opposite side of the truck, along the right edge of the road.

 

The McMichael's argument was that they were trying to keep Arbery away from them while he was running towards their direction.
It does seem plausible to me, even if that ended up creating a roadblock.

Arbery had been running away from the truck, which stopped, but then he later turned around and headed back, running towards the truck. Since Gregory was standing in the raised bed of the pickup truck, he was not in the best position if Arbery got on the other side side of the truck very close, since there would have been blocked visibility, and Travis had already stepped out of the truck and the driver's side door was open, which could have been a problematic situation if Arbery had tried driving the truck away. (It could have been dangerous to Gregory too) It is understandable why they did not want him to get near the truck at that point.

 

Well, unless it gets overturned on appeal, these three will get to spend their lives in jail.. I suppose the moral of the story is that all of their bad choices had awful consequences.

 

IMO, justice was done.

 

Makes sense that he was arbury was a known criminal and he wasn't just jogging.

 

Unfortunately, as much as many people want that to matter, it is irrelevant in this case. (well, mostly irrelevant. there may be some minor ways in which it could matter, giving us probable insight into how Arbery was likely behaving during the incident, and thus how the others would have reacted to that)

The men chasing him did not know for sure that Arbery had committed a real crime (worthy of arrest), and we have no evidence solid enough to prove Arbery had actually or was going to commit a crime at that time. Although we do know Arbery had committed some minor crimes before, and probably wasn't a "good boy" (and was on probation at the time), he is entitled to the benefit of the doubt.

That is undoubtedly why the jury was not allowed to hear about Arbery's criminal history, or the fact he was on probation at the time.

It is, however, my opinion that those men still had the right to follow him, even though Arbery had the right to the benefit of the doubt that he was not up to any crime.
The police certainly would have stopped him, had they been there. (And there are several ways in which a stop can be useful in preventing crime, even when an arrest is not possible, an issue that has been discussed in other places)

 

disagree. The entire impitus for this confrontation was arbury's illegal activity.

they don't have to. There is absolutely no law against them following him or confronting him and there's no law against them carrying guns. Everything leading up to the confrontation that the Michaels did was 100% legal.

not when he grabs someone else's gun. If they make Michaels had arrested him and handcuffed him I would support kidnapping charges for them or wrongful arrest whatever. But that's not what happened was it.

I wasn't really speaking about his criminal history I was speaking about the crime he was fleeing. He wasn't out for a jog that is a lie he was fleeing the scene of a crime that's why he had to be chased you don't chase someone that's jogging.

he was behaving suspiciously in the vicinity where a crime was committed. If a person doesn't pursue specifically the suspicious people fleeing the vicinity of a crime. First they are idiots.

It's like their crime is that they were savvy.

The police certainly would have stopped him, [/QUOTE] this right here should tell you that suspecting him and pursuing him was precisely correct because you admit people who are paid to do that would do just that.

The only problem you seem to have is that citizens are allowed to have guns and defend themselves just like police are.

Had they've been there stopping about arbery with a shotgun in their hands and a mod are very grabbed the shotgun which we saw on film him doing there is no debate about that at all they would have shot him to.

The only thing you have to argue about is whether or not a citizen can confront another citizen that's the only crime that the McMichael's did. The only thing different from them doing what they did and the police officer doing what they did is that a police officer is a police officer and in the United States a police officers is just an ordinary citizen. And bound by almost completely the same loss there is one function of police officer can do that ordinary citizen cannot. And it has nothing to do with confronting people.

 

The supposed argument by those who think the three are guilty is that they both chased and intimidated Arbery with guns, and that it was as part of a group, so one is responsible for the combined actions of the others.

(something I disagree with, and have explained my reasoning for elsewhere)

 

they had every right to follow him. He was suspicious.

The only question is did they have the right to have their guns with them. Did the McMichaels point the gun at arbury and then arbury reacted or did they point the guns as a reaction to arteries behavior because he didn't want to be caught in the crimes he was committing.

There is no doubt that he was fleeing the scene of a crime.

You further said the police would have had every right to pursue and question him.

If the police have the right to do that anybody does. If the police felt threatened and pointed a gun at him and he reached over and tried to yank the gun out of their hand they would have been justified in shooting him.

So really the only things police can do that a citizen cannot is arrest someone under suspicion of a felony. Or detain someone for a misdemeanor such as pulling them over in traffic.

Neither one of those things is what happened here. They did not arrest arbery they confronted him in anyone anywhere can do that to anybody. For no provocation at all but we do have provocation for this confrontation. I'm at Michaels could not have arrested arbery. But they absolutely can follow him all they wanted. As long as he was in public.

 

I presume then that you believe the verdict and sentencing in this case was a horrible travesty of justice?

Can I ask this: How do you think that could happen?
Why was the jury and judge unable to see things that way? Why did the prosecutor prosecute, throwing all those charges at all three of them?

Was it just a legally complicated case?
Did they misinterpret the evidence in the video?

Is society divided on what types of things they believe are wrong and right?

 

I go over why he may have felt threatened in this thread: post #11 with the video, Three men who chased Arbery sentenced the life in prison

 

I don't know. It really all depends on what happened first.

How I think this could happen, pressure from the public and over zealous DA.
I'm not sure the judge wasn't unable to see it that way.

Prosecutors prosecute for political reasons. Look at Rittenhouse.

I don't know I didn't sit on the jury.

No I don't think so. I think they are divided based on what they believe happened and not what really happened and others use that to further a narrative. Nobody likes when people die. But it's popular to say that they do when you want to be correct.

 

yep, no more guns for them, but free housing and meals for life

buying a gun has risks... especially for people that can't control their temper

if these people never bought a gun, they would be enjoying retired life

 

There is also the issue that the local authorities got, that they refused to find anything odd about it,... until the vid them rednecks made was made public. One of them rednecks, used to work for those local authorities as a cop. That's has little to do with the temper, but more with white privilege that's firmly in place.


I really do wonder what goes on in the minds of the cops who used to work with that guy. And can you trust the authorities where he worked plenty of years and found nothing odd about him?... and still did not see anything odd when he did THAT?

 

If these guys didn't have a gun violent criminal Ahmed Arberry could have killed them.

WHAT white privilege? Being railroaded into gaol because they were white and the man who attacked them was black? What goes on in the mind of the cops who worked with him is that he was a good guy who cared about law and order and who even when retired attempted to heroically apprehend a suspected burglar and detain him until the police arrived. No one who looks at this case independently could blame anyone but Arberry.

 

Absolutely not, since Arberry was unarmed. The only gun violent criminals were the rednecks who chased him around yelling death threats.

That ex-cop didn't know the law at all, hence the executioner is serving a life sentence without parole. And his buddies tried to cover it up, by refusing to arrest him and start a case. So yeah, I'm calling it... it's because the victim is black and the executioner was a white thug with a badge. This is how it goes down. The case was looked at independently, they and you lost.