The verdicts have just come in.
Jurors found Travis McMichael guilty of murder Wednesday for chasing and fatally shooting Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, as he jogged last year through a neighborhood in Glynn County, Georgia.
McMichael now faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Jurors convicted him of one count of malice murder and four counts of felony murder.
Gregory McMichael, Travis McMichael’s father, has been found guilty of felony murder. McMichael now faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
William “Roddie” Bryan Jr., one of three men, who filmed what they did to Arbery, has been found guilty of felony murder.
Bryan now faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Jurors convicted him of felony murder but acquitted him of the malice murder charge.
Any other outcome would itself been criminal.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/ahmaud-arbery-killing-trial-verdict-watch-11-24-21/index.html
PRAISE GOD!
Praise God
Thank you , God!
Prayer is powerful
Fugitive Slave Act 1850. Citizens Arrest 2020. Finally some justice 2021.
Beginning as a 10-year-old boy watching the original release of the 1977 TV miniseries ‘Roots’, I can recall how bewildered I’d get just by the concept of Black people being brutalized and told they were not welcome — while they, as a people, had been violently forced to the U.S. from their African home as slaves! And, as a people, there has been little or no reparations or real refuge for them here, since. In Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, the narrator notes that, like the South, the Civil War era northern states also hated Black people but happened to hate slavery more.
After 35 years of news consumption, I’ve found that a disturbingly large number of categorized people, however precious their souls, can be considered thus treated as though disposable, even to an otherwise democratic nation. When they take note of this, tragically, they’re vulnerable to begin subconsciously perceiving themselves as beings without value. (I’ve observed this in particular with indigenous-nation people living with substance abuse/addiction related to residential school trauma, including the indigenous children’s unmarked graves in Canada.)
While the inhuman(e) devaluation of such people is basically based on their race, it still reminds me of an external devaluation, albeit a subconscious one, of the daily civilian lives lost in protractedly devastating war zones and heavily armed sieges. They can eventually receive meagre column inches on the back page in the First World’s daily news.
I’m THANKFUL.
[…] Bryan will be eligible for parole in 30 years; the McMichaels have no possibility for parole. As he sentenced the murderers, Judge Walmsley had the courtroom sit in silence for one minute to have everyone present get a feel for at least a fraction of the five minutes Arbery was chased and terrorized by his now-convicted killers. […]
Being a 73 year-old gay man, I have been aware of the violence confronted daily by black people and other people of different race/color or “unwanted” foreigner status since the civil rights of my lifetime began in the late 50s and onward till today. I and others of my race have so much ‘work’ to do to confront and deal with our White Privilege, but dare I say, I at least feel privileged to be able to begin that process. I was heartbroken to watch the terror and violence of these three bigoted white ‘men’ who ruthlessly brutalized Ahmaud Arbery and finally murdered him. I am so relieved that they justly have to spend the rest of their lives in a jail. I only hope they face each day of their future spending at least some time of each day reflecting on and begging God for forgiveness for the irreputable harm they did to Ahmaud, his family, and the black community. May God have mercy on their pitiable small lives.
[…] Bryan will be eligible for parole in 30 years; the McMichaels have no possibility for parole. As he sentenced the murderers, Judge Walmsley had the courtroom sit in silence for one minute to have everyone present get a feel for at least a fraction of the five minutes Arbery was chased and terrorized by his now-convicted killers. […]