1st day of trial wraps up in Ahmaud Arbery murder case after controversy over jury
Three Georgia men are accused of chasing down and killing Ahmaud Arbery.
The murder trial of three white Georgia men charged in the 2020 killing of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man prosecutors allege was "hunted down" and shot to death while out for a Sunday jog, has begun.
The evidence portion of the high-profile case kicked off just after 9 a.m. Friday in Glynn County Superior Court in Brunswick, Georgia.
"I do feel like we're getting closer to justice for Ahmaud day by day," Arbery's mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, said in an interview scheduled to be broadcast Friday night on ABC's "Nightline."
The trial started under a cloud of controversy after a jury comprised of 11 white people and one Black person was selected on Wednesday, prompting an objection from prosecutors that the selection process, which took nearly three weeks, ended up racially biased.
On Thursday afternoon, one of the seated jurors, a white woman in her 40s or 50s, was dismissed from the panel for undisclosed medical issues. One of the alternate jurors, a white person, replaced her, bringing the number of alternates to three. All of the alternates are white.
The three defendants are Gregory McMichael, 65, a retired police officer; his son, Travis McMichael, 35; and their neighbor, William "Roddie" Bryan, 52.
The men have pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, aggravated assault and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment.
The McMichaels and Bryan were also indicted on federal hate crime charges in April and have all pleaded not guilty.
Arbery was out jogging on Feb. 23, 2020, through the Satilla Shores neighborhood near Brunswick when he was killed.
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Arbery's mother breaks down as death video played
Dunikoski methodically went through the events of Feb. 23, 2020, the day Arbery was killed.
She said it started around 1 p.m. when Gregory McMichael saw Arbery run past his home and allegedly assumed Arbery was a burglar seen in security videos a neighbor showed him. Dunikoski said at no time did Gregory McMichael ever see Arbery at the house under construction or had any reason to believe Arbery had committed a felony, grounds for making a citizens' arrest.
Dunikoski said Gregory McMichael ran into his home, armed himself with a handgun and got his son, Travis. She said Travis armed himself with a Remington 12-gauge pump-action shotgun and that he and his father got into his pickup truck and chased after Arbery.
She said that Bryan joined the chase with his pickup truck, not knowing why the McMichaels were chasing Arbery. Dunikoski said that during the five-minute chase of Arbery, Bryan attempted to strike the man with his pickup on four different occasions and admitted to running Arbery off the road and into a ditch.
Dunikoski played a cellphone video of the moment Arbery was cornered between the McMichaels' pickup and Bryan's truck and when Travis McMichael got out of his vehicle and shot Arbery.
As the video was played, Arbery's mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, who was sitting at the rear of the courtroom, broke down in tears.
Dunikoski also played a 911 call Gregory McMichael made at 1:14 p.m. and described an emergency: "I'm here in Satilla Shores. A Black male is running down the street."
"This was an attack on Mr. Arbery for five minutes and the only thing Mr. Arbery did was try to run away," Dunikoski said.
Videos of Arbery in home under construction shown
Dunikoski said the evidence will show that the defendants wrongly assumed Arbery was burglarizing a home under construction in their neighborhood.
The prosecutor played multiple videos of Arbery inside the unfinished home dating back to Oct. 25, 2019, to show that Arbery had a routine of running through the Satilla Shores neighborhood where the defendants lived.
But Dunikoski said none of the videos showed Arbery stealing or damaging anything. She said that after Arbery was captured on surveillance video on Feb. 11, 2020, the owner of the home under construction, Larry English, told the McMichaels through a sheriff's deputy that the unidentified Black man had been seen on security video at the home before and that he never stole anything.
Dunikoski also played a body-camera video of a sheriff's deputy speaking to the McMicheals outside the home under construction.
"At no time on this video do you hear the words burglary or attempted burglary," she said, referring to the reasons the McMichaels claimed they were attempting to make a citizen's arrest of Arbery.
Prosecutor gives opening statement
Dunikoski, the lead prosecutor in the case, began her opening statement by telling the jurors why they were there.
"We are here because of assumptions and driveway decisions," Dunikoski said.
"A very wise person once said do not assume the worst of another person's intentions until you actually know what's going on with them."
Dunikoski went on, "And in this case, all three of these defendants did everything that they did based on assumptions. And they made decisions in their driveways based on assumptions that took a young man's life and that's why we are here."
Jury sworn in
The jury of 11 white people and one Black person was sworn in by Judge Walmsley.
The judge acknowledged that many of the jurors have never served on a jury before. During his instructions, he went over the charges against the three defendants and told jurors the men have all pleaded not guilty to the charges.
"The charges and the plea of not guilty are of evidence of guilt," Walmsley told the panel, which sat socially distant, divided between the jury box and one side of the courtroom gallery.
"The defendants are presumed innocent until each is proven guilty. Each defendant enters upon the trial of the case with a presumption of innocence in his favor," he said.
Graphic images shown of Arbery's body from police response
The first day of the trial came to an end with the jury being shown graphic video of Arbery covered in blood and lying in the middle of the road after he had been shot three times.
The body-camera video of Officer William Duggan was played in court along with dash-camera video from his car.
Duggan said his body camera captured the scene when he first arrived.
He said the first thing he did was to make sure the scene was secure and safe for him and a second officer already there.
Duggan said Arbery was lying face down in the road and that he turned the body over and quickly assessed that Arbery was already dead.
"The amount of blood loss I observed at the scene and the lack of rise and fall of the chest, and the gaping wound on the side of his chest ... there was nothing I could do for him," Duggan said.
The trial will resume Monday morning.