For Black residents of Ahmaud Arbery’s hometown, trust in the justice system is on trial right alongside his accused killers

CNN

By Dakin Andone, CNN Photographs by Elijah Nouvelage for CNN

The protesters carried signs reading “Justice for Ahmaud” and marched past majestic live oak trees covered with Spanish moss. They chanted the name of Ahmaud Arbery as they meandered through the streets, past a hardware store, several houses, a grocery store. They turned the corner by the flower shop and called on the sidewalk to join them.

They soon stopped in a meadow at the Brunswick African American Cultural Center, 10 miles from the apartment block where Arbery was shot. It was the fifth day of testimony in the trial of the whites accused of killing the black jogger, and dozens of people had gathered for a march that began outside the Glynn County courthouse.

At the cultural center, where a mural of Arbery’s smiling face is set against a blue and yellow background, Annie Polite paused and sat on her walker.

“The system has to change,” said the 87-year-old black woman. “It’s not fair. There is no justice in what goes on behind closed doors. We all deserve equal justice.”

This is a feeling other black residents of this small southern town recently echoed when the state brought its lawsuit against Gregory McMichael, Travis McMichael and William “Roddie” Bryan Jr Sunday afternoon in February 2020. A Black and 11 White jurors will soon be their doom weigh up.

For many, the trial isn’t just about trying to fair Arbery, who was dead more than two months before the defendants were arrested. It is also seen as a fundamental opportunity for the judicial system to function in the way it should function – fairly and just – for people of all races.

Across America, 61% of black adults have little to no confidence in the criminal justice system, a Gallup poll found this year, compared with 41% of white adults. Regardless, 88% of blacks believe the criminal justice system favors whites over blacks, compared to 63% of whites who responded to a 2020 CNN / SSRS poll.

In Arbery’s hometown, the trial of his death has underscored suspicion.

“A lot of people have said – and I have said it – that this is really putting our judicial system to the test in the eyes of many people,” said John Perry II, a pastor and former president of the Braunschweig NAACP, who spoke this month Has lost the offer for the mayor of Braunschweig.

“You are looking carefully at this case to see, ‘Can we really trust this justice system?’ … to answer the question in their minds and hearts: ‘Do we have a justice system that we can rely on?’ “

A quiet wait for answers

While the defendants’ actions and motives are being reviewed in court, some black residents here have their own theories as to why Arbery was murdered, often based on their experiences in Braunschweig, where around 55% of residents are black, compared with 27% as a whole District.

Undoubtedly, many white neighbors – including some who joined last week’s march – are keen to bridge a nationwide racial divide exposed by the murders of Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others last year. But relationships between blacks and whites in Glynn County generally go no deeper than warmth, Perry said, calling it a “lack of intimacy.” Coexistence and “being kindness is not a really intimate connection,” he said.

Aundra Fuller, a middle school special education and executive director of the Brunswick African American Cultural Center, believes Arbery’s fatal shooting was due to a gap in mutual understanding when the defendants met him on a suburban street, she said.

A lack of “cultural awareness” lends itself to a mindset in which the defendants felt comfortable enough to “devalue a person for the color of their skin,” she said.

Defense attorneys said the McMichaels and Bryan tried to lawfully arrest Arbery, whom they suspected of the break-in. The men chased Arbery around the neighborhood and effectively trapped him, prosecutors said. After a physical altercation, Travis McMichael shot Arbery at close range with a shotgun. Travis McMichael testified in court that he acted in self-defense when he and Arbery were fighting over his shotgun.

Helen Ladson, a tour guide here who also ran unsuccessfully for mayor, put it this: “My question is always: Why did you feel so comfortable shooting this man in broad daylight and thought you could get away with it?” Why were they so comfortable? “

Long before Arbery’s death attracted national attention, there were rumors in that community about the plot that Arbery was shot while attempting a break-in, local residents said.

James Yancey, a Black Criminal Defense attorney, was surprised at how little detail about the incident was in a short article in the local newspaper, he recalled. Perry had similar concerns at the time.

“Because when you say that a young black man was shot trying to break into the ground,” he says, the key questions come to mind: “Was he armed? Was there a threat to life that resulted in someone trying to protect themselves from the person who had perpetrated the break-in? We hadn’t heard anything about it. “

“It’s not new,” said Dwight E. Jordan, a former state probation officer who is Black. “To hear the cops or someone impersonating police turn around and shoot someone, especially a person of color, especially a black woman, because he ran while Black was running – that’s not new to me.”

Perry learned that his son had played high school football with Arbery. He told his father that the former linebacker was someone who could make everyone laugh, who encouraged lower class members.

“There was immediately another level of passion,” he said. “Because they’re trying to paint the narrative about who Ahmaud was. But then, when you began to find out for yourself who he was, it stoked outrage that you were trying to give such a negative, negative character to someone who has sown so many seeds of good in our community. “

Some soon compared Arbery’s murder to that of Trayvon Martin, a black 17-year-old who was fatally shot and killed by a neighborhood guard in Florida in 2012 who claimed to be self-defense. The shooter was later acquitted.

“There were people on Facebook who said, ‘Hey, you’re all talking about Trayvon Martin, but we have a Trayvon Martin case here and nobody says anything about it,'” recalled Ladson.

The tension breaks out – but not surprisingly, somehow

The McMichaels and Bryan were arrested only after the video of the shooting, filmed by Bryan, went public in early May 2020.

Tensions broke out in the community. Fuller called it “shocking”. Perry was “horrified”. And Yancey was “in disbelief” that the authorities had not released the footage sooner. The then Braunschweig public prosecutor was later charged with violating her oath of office and obstructing a police officer in connection with her alleged actions after Arbery’s death.

Then-prosecutor Jackie Johnson had ordered two Glynn County police officers not to arrest Travis McMichael immediately after the shooting, according to her indictment. She was also accused of violating her oath of office by “showing mercy and affection” to Greg McMichael, a former investigator in her office.

But disturbing as the video was, it didn’t surprise the black residents here.

“Having been black all my life, living in America all my life, bad things are almost expected to happen to black people,” Yancey said. “When I saw this video, it continued to validate the value of life in America, especially for black men.”

Asked what he thought when he saw the video, Jordan Childish quoted Gambino as saying, “This is America.”

Sister Sonia Richardson, mother of three black sons and grandchildren, “just couldn’t believe it.”

“It was like playing around (with the case), like people weren’t taking it seriously. The law didn’t take it seriously. Our criminal justice system didn’t take it seriously, ”she said.

The episode shook Perry’s confidence in the judicial system, he said.

“There was nothing we could do about the McMichaels’ decision (to pursue Arbery). What is in a man’s heart and how he behaves cannot be controlled, ”he said. “But when something like this happens, one definitely hopes that when the law enforcement officers show up, they will arrest them, that they will say that this is unjust and that this as a civil society” is not our way of working. But we don’t have that. “

Perry was grateful for the work of Attorney General Chris Carr and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation in taking over the case around the time the video was released. With their participation, Perry is confident that a measure of justice will prevail. But as a citizen, he asked himself, “Do I have to get this high to get justice at the local level?”

“We trust that they will enforce justice,” he said. “And this gross incident happens and they close their eyes.”

Lady Justice faces a moment of truth

As advised by the jury, these black residents are largely optimistic and hope for convictions for all three of the defendants. And the racist composition of the jury offers a chance, Fuller said: If a jury of one black and eleven whites convicted three white men in killing a black, the convictions would appear final.

“The jury is tasked with obeying the law,” said the special education teacher. “And if you obey the law, it doesn’t matter what color you are. So it may come as a surprise that this all-white jury condemns them. “

But like others, she is prepared for disappointment. For blacks in America, acquittals in the case would be “just another day at the beach,” she said. “We’ve had injustice for so long … we don’t expect justice.”

Perry believes in an “absolute truth,” which to him means that the accused will be found guilty. But it also means seeing how the judicial system lives up to the promise that “justice is blind – it doesn’t take color into account”.

“When I see the process of justice work like the promise of justice, that is what justice looks like to me,” he said.

“Ultimately, this is where the United States, the judicial system, is on trial,” said Jordan, the former probation officer. “Lady Justice has to show that she can look every now and then to see the injustice, to see that her scales are unbalanced, and try to make up for it when she can – when she is ready.”

Back at the march, Polite rose from her walker and stepped forward to kneel with protesters, clergymen, and members of Arbery’s family to pray for this justice.

“This is a fight that has been and continues to go on all my life,” she said. “As long as there is a fight, I have to stay in the fight.”

The CNN Wire
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CNN’s Demetrius Pipkin contributed to this report.

For Black residents of Ahmaud Arbery’s hometown, trust in the justice system is on trial right alongside his accused killers