Defendant said Ahmaud Arbery was 'trapped like a rat' before slaying, investigator testifies

One of the three white men standing trial for the death of Ahmaud Arbery said they had the 25-year-old Black man "trapped like a rat" before he was fatally shot, a police investigator testified Wednesday.

Father and son Greg and Travis McMichael armed themselves and chased Arbery in a pickup truck after they spotted him running in their coastal Georgia neighborhood on Feb. 23, 2020. A neighbour, William "Roddie" Bryan, joined the pursuit in his own truck and took cellphone video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery three times at close range with a shotgun.

More than two months passed before the three men were arrested on charges of murder and other crimes, after the graphic video leaked online and deepened a national reckoning over racial injustice.

Glynn County police Sgt. Roderic Nohilly told the jury Wednesday he spoke with Greg McMichael at police headquarters a few hours after the shooting. He said Greg McMichael, 65, told him Arbery "wasn't out for no Sunday jog. He was getting the hell out of there."

The father told Nohilly he recognized Arbery because he had been recorded by security cameras a few times inside a neighbouring home under construction. Greg McMichael said they gave chase to try to stop Arbery from escaping the subdivision.

"He was trapped like a rat," Greg McMichael said, according to a transcript of their recorded interview Nohilly read in court. "I think he was wanting to flee and he realized that something, you know, he was not going to get away."

Defence attorneys say the McMichaels and Bryan were legally justified in chasing and trying to detain Arbery because they reasonably thought he was a burglar. Greg McMichael told police Travis McMichael, 35, fired in self-defence as Arbery attacked with his fists and tried to grab his son's shotgun.

"He had an opportunity to flee further, you know," Greg McMichael told Nohilly. "We had chased him around the neighbourhood a bit, but he wasn't winded at all. I mean this guy was, he was in good shape."

Prosecutors say the McMichaels and Bryan chased Arbery for five minutes before he was shot in the street after running past the McMichaels' idling truck. Prosecutor Linda Dunikoski has described him as an "avid runner" who lived about three kilometresfrom the Satilla Shores neighbourhood where he was slain.

Bryan, 52, was on his front porch when he saw Arbery run past with the McMichaels' truck close behind. He told police he didn't recognize any of them, or know what prompted the chase, but still joined in after calling out: "Y'all got him?"

Bryan said he used his truck several times to cut off Arbery and edge him off the road, testified Stephan Lowrey, the lead Glynn County police investigator on the case. He said police found Arbery's fingerprints by the truck's driver-side door, next to a dent in the body. Bryan said Arbery had tried to open the door, but he denied striking the running man.

"I didn't hit him," Bryan said, according to an interview transcript Lowrey read in court. "Wish I would have. Might have took him out and not get him shot."

Bryan's attorney, Kevin Gough, asked the investigator if he thought Bryan committed aggravated assault or any other "serious violent felony" with his truck.

WATCH |Trial begins with opposing views on motive:

Ahmaud Arbery murder trial begins with opposing views on motive

3 years ago

Duration 2:09

The trial for the three men accused in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery got underway Friday in Georgia with the prosecution alleging it was a racially motivated murder, while the defence portrays it as a citizens arrest.

"No, that wasn't the way I interpreted it at the time," said Lowrey, who agreed that local police considered Bryan a witness to the shooting.

Glynn County police made no arrests in Arbery's shooting. But Lowrey said he hadn't closed the case when the Georgia Bureau of Investigation took it over in May.

"It was still open but not getting much traction," Lowrey said. He added: "I think inactive was a fair summary."

The Rev. Al Sharpton spoke with reporters Wednesday outside the Glynn County courthouse, where he held the hands of Arbery's parents while leading a prayer for justice. Sharpton criticized the disproportionately white makeup of the jury.

Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley allowed the jury to be sworn in last week after prosecutors objected, saying several Black potential jurors were excluded because of their race, leaving only one Black juror on the panel of 12. The county where the trial is being held is nearly 27 per centBlack.

"It's an insult to the intelligence of the American people," Sharpton said. "If you can count to 12 and only get to one that's Black, you know something's wrong."