By Rich McKay
ATLANTA (Reuters) – Three white men charged with murdering an unarmed black man in Georgia will face a judge next week in a case that touched off a national outcry after cellphone video of the shooting was leaked on social media.
A clerk for a Glynn County magistrate judge confirmed Wednesday that the three men will appear in magistrate’s court on June 4, to hear the charges and for a decision on bail in the death of the unarmed black man, Ahmaud Arbery, 25.
Civil rights activists pointed to the case, in which there were no arrests until 10 weeks after the killing, as the latest incident of law enforcement in the United States allowing white perpetrators to go unpunished in the unjustified killing of a black man.
Former police officer Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son Travis McMichael, 34, are each charged with murder and aggravated assault in the Feb. 23 slaying. William “Roddie” Bryan, a neighbor of the McMichaels who took the cellphone video, was charged with felony murder and attempt to illegally detain and confine.
Police say Gregory McMichael saw Arbery running in his neighborhood just outside the small, coastal community of Brunswick and believed he looked like a burglary suspect. The elder McMichael called his son and the two armed themselves and gave chase in a pickup truck, police said.
Bryan’s video appears to show the McMichaels confronting Arbery, before he was shot with a shotgun.
More than two months later, when the cellphone video was leaked, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation stepped in. The McMichaels were arrested after a two-day investigation, on May 7. Bryan was arrested May 21.
The U.S. Department of Justice is also investigating the case as a possible federal hate crime.
Attorneys for the McMichaels could not immediately be reached for comment. Kevin Gough, attorney for Bryan, declined comment Wednesday.
If convicted, the three men face life in prison or the death penalty.
(Reporting by Rich McKay; editing by Bill Tarrant and Leslie Adler)
