New body camera video shows events immediately following Ahmaud Arbery shooting
Glynn County Sheriff’s OfficeBy IVAN PEREIRA, ABC News
(ATLANTA, Ga.) — Newly released footage from police body cameras showing the immediate aftermath of the Ahmaud Arbery shooting showed that officers were aware that the shooting of the unarmed Black jogger had been filmed by the suspects.
The body camera footage from the Feb. 23 shooting in Satilla Shores, Georgia, was entered into evidence this week and was obtained by Atlanta ABC affiliate WSB on Tuesday.
The footage shows officers speaking to Gregory McMichael; his son, Travis McMichael, who prosecutors say chased the 25-year-old Arbery while he was running and shot him; and William “Roddie” Bryan, who prosecutors say drove behind the McMichaels and filmed the entire incident.
Gregory McMichael is seen in the body camera footage talking to his son as a Glynn County, Georgia, police officer arrives minutes after the shooting.
“Travis, Roddie’s got it on film,” the elder McMichael says in the footage.
In the video, the McMichaels claimed they shot Aubrey, who was unarmed, in self-defense in the middle of a burglary in the neighborhood. Gregory McMichael, a former officer and investigator for the Brunswick District Attorney’s Office, tells the officers in the body camera footage that he had his police-issued .357 magnum on him.
“If he would stop, this wouldn’t have happened,” he told officers in the footage.
In part of the body camera footage, one of the responding police officers is seen acknowledging Greg McMichael’s law enforcement history while speaking with another officer.
When the police questioned Bryan, they asked if he was a “passerby” during the incident to which he responded “not necessarily,” according to the footage. In the video, Bryan admits to following Arbery, blocking him in and filming the incident.
“This man stood feet away from where my son lay shot to death and seems to brag about his part,” Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, said in a statement about the bodycam footage. “He and all involved must be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”
“Should we have been following him? I don’t know,” Bryan is seen in the footage telling an officer.
Attorneys for the McMichaels and Bryan did not immediately return messages for comment.
Ben Crump, one of the attorneys representing Arbery’s family, said in a statement the new body camera footage refuted Bryan’s initial claims that he had nothing to do with the shooting.
“With the murderous teamwork of Bryan and the McMichaels exposed for the world to see, we are confident that this will bring us one step closer to justice for the Arbery family,” he said in a statement.
The police and prosecutors didn’t initially file charges against the suspects despite calls from Arbery’s family and activists who questioned the McMichaels’ contention that they were acting in self-defense.
That changed after Bryan’s video of the incident was leaked on social media on May 5.
The footage showed Arbery running away from the McMichaels, who chased him in their truck with Gregory McMichael in the flatbed with his magnum and Travis McMichael in the driver’s seat.
“William ‘Roddy’ Bryan describes his involvement in trapping and murdering Ahmaud Arbery,” the Arbery family’s lead counsel, S. Lee Merritt, said in a statement about the police video. “Look at this demeanor as he describes this brutal murder. Ahmaud’s body is just feet away from him still in the streets as he excitedly describes him desperately trying to get away.”
The younger McMichael is seen wrestling with Arbery over Travis’ shotgun before the victim was shot three times and collapsed.
Prosecutors said the suspects shouted racial slurs at Arbery before he was shot.
The McMichaels were arrested and charged with murder and aggravated assault charges two days after the video went viral. On May 21, Bryan was arrested and charged with murder and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment.
All three have pleaded not guilty.
ABC News’ Sabina Ghebremedhin contributed to this report.
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