Ahmaud Arbery: Victim of a Racist Lynching or an Unfortunate Incident?

It’s all over the news, two white guys shot a black man in Georgia while he was jogging because they thought he was a burglar. The racial aspect touched a nerve, which was compounded because Gregory McMichael and his son Travis McMichael took the law into their own hands. It looked like the Trayvon Martin fatal shooting all over again. And things got worse when more details started coming out.

So is this a modern day racist lynching, as some like Al Sharpton are claiming, or is it merely an unfortunate situation? Now it’s too early to pass judgment, since the men are entitled to a jury trial in a court of law. We don’t know all of the facts yet. But we do know quite a few, and the main controversy seems to come down to the men’s decision to follow Armery.

People were outraged that the men were not arrested right away. It took the release of a video of the shooting a couple months later, invoking loud protests, to arrest them.

The prosecutor for the Brunswick Judicial Circuit, Jackie Johnson, recused herself because the elder McMichael had worked in her office. The next prosecutor assigned to the case, Waycross Judicial Circuit District Attorney George Barnhill, also recused himself because his son worked for Johnson’s office.