re: Body cam footage of police interactions with Ahmaud Aubrey

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The only thing I can tell we might disagree on is who made the most significant move at the front of the truck. I'm not sure it really matters, but from the course Arbery takes, the momentum of the two and the speed/agility advantage I attribute to Arbery, I think he is wrapping around the truck with the intention to confront McMichael and covers most of the distance between them.

Which I think could be important in a situation where the McMichaels had a self-defense privilege, but as far as I know they did not.

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There's been some hints that McMichaels are going to argue self-defense to get off. Apparently, when the former DA (Barnhill) wrote his letter as to why they shouldn't be charged he stated:

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"Given the fact Arbery initiated the fight," wrote Barnhill then, "at the point Arbery grabbed the [suspect Travis McMichael's] shotgun, under Georgia Law McMichael was allowed to use deadly force to protect himself."

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And then responded to questions from Newsweek with this:

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In an email response to questions from Newsweek, Barnhill declined to discuss the Arbery case specifically because of ethics rules. But he wrote, "In general terms, I think it's an excellent idea to research and write about Georgia's unique laws on citizen's arrest, rights of public carry of firearms, and self-defense. What 99 percent of America think they know about these laws comes from TV and movies which are generally and loosely based on California and New York, not Georgia."

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It seems they're going to push that they had the right to go after him with guns drawn because of right to carry and self-defense. So it's likely going to matter.

Newsweek Article on Case

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Ain’t gonna lie frick the police in the first video. Somebody is just sitting and he comes up and searches them? Nah. That’s the kind of over policing that leads to all the bs like in Ferguson. The reason? Drugs of course. The drug war has turned us into a police state.

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On the one hand, I agree with that. Claiming drug activity in the area is such a bullshite excuse to harass someone sitting in their car. And those are the type of stops that disproportionately target black people.

On the other hand, Arbery escalated that and clearly made a couple of aggressive moves towards the cop. I'll give the cop some credit for showing some restraint and trying to be respectful, but I also get some of Arbery's anger for being harassed.

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It seems they're going to push that they had the right to go after him with guns drawn because of right to carry and self-defense. So it's likely going to matter.

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I don't really get Barhill's angle, because neither the statutes, nor the caselaw back him up.

It's not at issue whether it's legal to carry a gun openly in Georgia, but it's well settled that ordering compliance, back up by deadly weapons without a legal justification to do so is an aggravated assault.

It's as if Barnhill thinks the Mcmichaels were minding their own business and Arbery just attacks them for being armed.

Neither the statutes, nor the Georgia caselaw support a citizens arrest in this situation either.

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You'll have to explain the significance of what you think I'm missing?

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That McMichael makes the first move as Arbery is approaching the vehicle. You can see Arbery starting to veer off and McMichael already having stepped away from the truck. This is photo 1 and 2.

In photo 2 vs 3, I don't think there's any way McMichael coyld have gotten back to be obscured by the door if Arbery made the first move. Arbery's jogging and only has 8 feet or so to get from one side of the truck to the other.

For McMichael to have moved 4-5 feet and be facing Arbery by the time the two make contact, he would have had to move before Arbery rounded the passenger's side.

I think it's significant that McMichael moved to cut Arbery off with a shotgun twice. I agree with your assessment on privilege, but the fallback defense for McMichael would be self defense by alleging Arbery charged him. McMichael's movements towards Arbery twice tend to defeat that backup defense.

Racism right here

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It's not at issue whether it's legal to carry a gun openly in Georgia, but it's well settled that ordering compliance, back up by deadly weapons without a legal justification to do so is an aggravated assault.

It's as if Barnhill thinks the Mcmichaels were minding their own business and Arbery just attacks them for being armed.

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It seems like Barnhill is arguing that they weren’t using guns to detain Arbery; rather, they were detaining Arbery while open-carrying. He’s trying to separate the guns from the citizen’s arrest because you can’t reasonably use lethal force to detain someone for trespassing.

It’s a bullshite argument since the McMichaels already stated that they brought guns because they thought Arbery might be armed. They decided lethal force was acceptable at that moment, not when Arbery ran around the pickup truck. If it was just the elder McMichael with a holstered pistol that would be one thing - but you gonna tell me Travis McMichael has a shotgun in his hand every time he gets out of his truck at Walmart?

Next time Barnhill’s office prosecutes an armed robbery, the defense should argue that the defendant was simply “open-carrying while robbing”.

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Rather, the argument began with a discussion of lynching, or more specifically, whether the McMichaels likely had any real intent to commit murder when they set in motion the events that led to Arbery's death.

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Went back through and read the entire exchange, I think my point was valid but I will also admit that I might have misunderstood what you were getting at in the part I quoted.

I do agree that “lynching” is not the best word for this, but Spleen’s not wrong to point out that similar incidents have been referred to as lynchings in the past - also keeping in mind that an extrajudicial killing can be considered a lynching regardless of whether it was racially motivated according to the literal definition of the word.

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The biggest issue with all of this is that we're reconstructing motivations/thoughts that the McMichaels may have never had. More than likely, there was no "let's go put it to this black guy and if we have to kill him, so be it." Nor was there likely a "Does he have a gun? He might, let's bring guns." Most likely it was two guys wired in a way where they bring guns to a dicey situation (even of their own making) without much more consideration than that.

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Greg McMichael told the police that he grabbed his .357 and Travis grabbed his shotgun because “they didn’t know if the male was armed or not” according to the police report. If you take him at his word, that does not point to an unconscious decision.

Combine that with the news that Greg McMichael apparently is the one who leaked the video in the first place, because he felt it proved that he and his son were innocent. So it’s not a huge stretch to extrapolate either of those thoughts based on the information that’s available today.

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I think his angle is to cover his fricking arse

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I like how he met with the cops and gave them his opinion on the case even prior to the first DA recusing herself.

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Ain’t gonna lie frick the police in the first video. Somebody is just sitting and he comes up and searches them? Nah. That’s the kind of over policing that leads to all the bs like in Ferguson. The reason? Drugs of course. The drug war has turned us into a police state.

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I agree, war on drugs is a failure. But this doesnt just happen to black guys. Not sure if any of you baws have been pulled over late at night in BR before.

I had a whole hoard of under cover show up at my house saying they got an anonymous tip about drug activity at our house. we had some bongs and pipes laying around but they were looking for pills and ecstasy.

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He defended himself against a guy holding a shotgun

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FIFY