In 2020, Ahmaud Arbery was killed in cold blood by three people just for jogging past them. According to Time, these convicted felons are claiming it was not a hate crime. Greg McMichael and his neighbor William "Roddy" Bryan are trying to claim that their murder had nothing to do with them being racist. They just wanted to kill a criminal.
Greg's son, Travis McMichael was smart enough to admit that it was a hate crime, at least. Instead, his defense was based on a technicality. The streets where the murder happened were technically not public. The reason why he is not arguing against the murder being a hate crime is because of something he did in 2018. He posted a comment on a Facebook video of a black man pranking a white person. His comment threatened to murder the African American.
Ahmaud Arbery Hate Crime Defense
McMichael tried to wiggle out of his hate crime conviction. He said that he started chasing and killing Arbery, not for his skin color, but rather because he trespassed for half a second. Months before the murder, Aubery was caught on camera going into a neighbor's house that was under construction. He only popped in and out. Aubery did not vandalize anything, nor did he steal anything. He wasn't even armed. McMichael's attorney had written an explanation that explains that Arbery's race was “a fact of no greater import to Gregory McMichael’s calculus than Mr. Arbery’s biological sex, the shorts he was wearing, his hairstyle, or his tattoos.”
Bryan's defense, at least, had a very slightly larger margin of doubt than McMichael's. He claims he had not seen the security footage. He only saw a black man running away from his neighbors. So, he just went along with it, assuming that his neighbors had good reason. He also claimed that Aubery never called out for help. Nor, did he show signs of being a victim of an unprovoked attack.
[Via]
