There has been a strange new development in the case involving a white father and son who have been accused murdering a young black man, Ahmaud Arbery, earlier this year in Georgia.
By now, most readers have seen the shocking viral video of the shooting of Arbery, who was reportedly jogging at the time through the South Georgia community of Satilla Shores in February when Gregory McMichael, a retired investigator in the local district attorney’s office, and his son appeared to chase him down in a pick up truck and shoot him.
That video was leaked to a local radio personality, but it wasn’t clear how he obtained it.
Now we know: McMichael leaked it himself because he believed it would put him and his son in a better light, according to WSB-TV in Atlanta.
The video shows McMichael standing in the back of a pickup truck holding what appears to be a handgun while his son, Travis, confronts Arbery and opens fire on him with a shotgun. At one point, the two appear to be tussling over the weapon.
The strange plot twist was revealed Friday by Alan Tucker, a Brunswick attorney who had informally consulted with the suspects, and who was previously known to have been the source of the video, which was taken by a friend of the McMichaels following them in a vehicle.
The attorney said that Gregory McMichael brought the video, along with others, to his office to be downloaded so it could be sent to local radio station WGIG in Brunswick.
Tucker also thought leaking the video would ease racial tensions, when in fact, it has inflamed them.
Subsequent reports noted that Arbery was caught on video trespassing in an unfinished home shortly before he was shot and killed.
The New York times filled in some more blanks in a recent report:
Two months before Ahmaud Arbery was fatally shot in Glynn County, Ga., a police officer there sent a text to a property owner who was worried about recurring trespassing incidents, a lawyer for the homeowner said on Friday.
The officer provided the phone number of a nearby resident, telling the owner to call it the next time his motion-sensing security cameras whirred into action.
That resident, Gregory McMichael … never received a call from the owner asking for help. But this month, Mr. McMichael and his son were arrested on murder charges after they chased and then confronted Mr. Arbery, who was black, through the streets of their Southeast Georgia neighborhood on Feb. 23.
Gregory McMichael told police shortly after the incident that he chased Arbery because he believed he was a suspect in a string of local break-ins. But police let both men go in February.
They were arrested after the Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the case.
