The sister and daughter of the alleged murderers of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery's has spoken out about the shooting, admitting that "mistakes were made" but that the incident "was no lynching".
Earlier this month, it was announced by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation that father and son Gregory and Travis McMichael had been arrested and charged for Arbery's murder.
The charges came more than two months after Arbery was killed on a residential street just outside the port city of Brunswick, Georgia.
Below is a breaking news report on the McMichaels' arrests:The case caused national outrage when cellphone footage - captured by a friend of the McMichaels family who was following in his car - of the incident appeared to show the unarmed Arbery attempting to flee an attack from Gregory, 64, and his son Travis, 34.
Back in February, Arbery had reportedly been jogging in their neighborhood, when the white father and son confronted the black man. Footage from the incident then appears to show the unarmed Arbery being shot and killed in the street. The McMichaels say they thought Arbery was a burglar.
Per CNN, a prosecutor who has since recused himself from the case says the father and son were attempting to make a citizen's arrest, and that they acted in self-defense when Arbery grabbed their gun.
Now, Lindsay McMichael, 30, has spoken out about the incident in defense of her family.
Speaking exclusively to The Sun, Lindsay says she was at home in her pajamas when she first heard gunshots and commotion outside her house.
When she ran outside, she was met by a firefighter who informed her that her brother and father were safe.
Lindsay says before her brother was taken into custody, she looked him in the eye and insists: "I will until the day that I die believe that he had no intention of malice like that." She added:
"All I saw was the look on his [Travis's] face and he was looking very desperate... I don't think we even exchanged a word.
"I've seen my brother in his happiest moments - I was there when his child was born and I've seen him in distress and I know that look... it wasn't like some glory thing, like 'I stalked and then got the kill that I was hoping for'.
"It was absolute f***king panic...I really do believe that things just escalated so fast."
Earlier this month, Marcus Arbery, the victim's father, spoke to PBS Newshour and described his son's death as a "lynch mob".
However, Lindsay says that her brother and father are not racist and that they "loved" all her non-white boyfriends like a "brother or son". She added:
"They're not monsters. This wasn't a lynching. Do I think mistakes were made? Absolutely, but look back on your life how many mistakes have you made?
"Do I think that decisions were rash and people were jumping ahead? Yes. But do I think anybody thought 'Today I'm going to kill someone'. Absolutely not."
She also says that she "doesn't really have a relationship" with either her dad or brother - and hasn't really about the incident with them since.
Nevertheless, Lindsay believes her dad and brother were simply trying to apprehend the person they thought was a suspect - until law enforcement could arrive, explaining:
"I don't think it was vigilante justice. Travis had a weapon stolen. My mom's car had been rifled through. I think they just thought 'Let's apprehend this guy'."
Last week, the New York Post has reported that a new video had come to light, appearing to show Ahmaud Arbery calmly wandering around the construction site of a new house on the Glynn County neighborhood moments before his death.
The security footage was obtained by News4Jax, and seems to show an inquisitive Arbery, 25, looking around the Brunswick property for just under three minutes. He then leaves the property and continues to run down the road.
You can see the footage in the News4Jax report below:News4Jax confirmed that the station obtained the video from the homeowner.
The man in the video can be seen wearing a white t-shirt and shorts - an outfit that matches the one Arbery was wearing in footage that showed him being shot dead.
The footage has drawn different opinions from attorneys.
Firstly, Rod Sullivan - an attorney who is not associated with the case - said that under Georgia state laws, police would have had probable cause to make a trespassing arrest if it were made possible. Sullivan added:
"[The new footage] really gives the two McMichaels, father and son, justification for following Mr. Arbery at least to the scene where the altercation occurred."
However, civil rights attorney Reganel Reeves - who is also not associated in the case - has told News4Jax that Gregory and Trevor did not have to follow and engage with Arbery based on this footage.
Reeves said: "Call the police. They could’ve followed him until police arrived. He was out there running on open road. There was no reason for them to engage him directly on the basis of him going into somebody else’s constructed home."
In addition, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution also revealed that GBI agents were reviewing further surveillance footage from the Glynn County neighborhood across the street from the construction site.
The video was captured by a home security camera installed at a house about a block from the fatal shooting, and appears to show Arbery just minutes from the fatal shooting.
The surveillance footage can be seen in the news report below:Per the AJC, Scott Dutton, GBI’s Deputy Director of investigations, said: "We are using video to put the timeline together to fill in the blanks of what happened that afternoon."
A further statement from the GBI issued on Saturday (May 9) afternoon states: "We are indeed reviewing additional video footage and photographs as part of the active case.
"It is important to note that this footage was reviewed at the beginning of the GBI investigation and before the arrests of Gregory and Travis McMichael."
In response to the footage above, Lawyers representing Arbery's family said in a Saturday statement that the security camera video proves Arbery is innocent of any wrongdoings. Part of the statement read:
"Ahmaud Arbery did not take part in any felony, had no illegal substances in his system, was not armed yet was shot three times with a shotgun at close range."
The video shows a man wearing a white shirt and shorts - believed to be Arbery - walking down Satilla Drive on that Sunday afternoon. The man then enters the garage of a house under construction, and then proceeds to walk around the back of the house.
A minute later, after a car passes, a figure that appears to be Arbery comes out of the front door of the house and runs down the road in the direction of Travis McMichael’s home. The man did not appear to take anything from the house.
Six minutes later, a police car drives down the road, followed by first responders.
Gary Arbery - Ahmaud's uncle - said of the new footage: "Whatever they are trying to do to justify what they did, they can't do it.
"If he committed a crime, why don’t you call the authorities? But you came at him like you were hunting an animal."
Earlier this month, the lawyer who leaked the original cell phone footage of Arbery's shooting also spoke out about his reasons for sharing the video with the public.
Speaking to Inside Edition, Brunswick attorney Alan Tucker not only revealed that he was the one who released the video, but said he did so believing that doing so would help the McMichaels, who are father and son.
Tucker can be seen explaining his actions in the video below:"I really thought the video would put the truth out to the public," Tucker told the news show. "I was trying to stop a riot."
When he was asked to elaborate, Tucker said: "Well, you saw what happened to Baltimore, you've seen what happened to Charleston, you saw what happened to Ferguson. I was trying to stop a riot."
Tucker is referring to the 2015 arrest and death of Freddie Gray. Gray - a 25-year-old black man - had been arrested on April 12, 2015, by Baltimore police, and while being transported in a police van, suffered spinal injuries so severe that they eventually resulted in his death.
Per the BBC, several incidents of violent protests and riots erupted later that month, resulting in further arrests and injured police officers.
Tucker continued to explain that if Arbery had cooperated and "froze", he wouldn't have gotten shot, saying:
"The video speaks for itself. What happened, happened. I don't have an excuse for it. I can't explain. Other than, we always say, 'What if he had just froze and hadn't done anything, he wouldn't have gotten shot.'"
Marcus Arbery, Ahmaud 's father, spoke to PBS Newshour on earlier this month, saying:
"I don't know why they racially profile him and done him like that because all he did is work out and ran and just took care of his body, because he had dreams now.
"Now all his dreams are gone, because they took his life for nothing."
When asked about the suggestion that his son could have been involved in a burglary, Mr Arbery said that was "just a lie and a cover-up".
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has since said in statement:
"The outcome of this incident left more than one victim, and we want to ensure that the family of Ahmaud Arbery is not further traumatized."
Both Gregory and Travis McMichael were detained on May 7 by the Georgia state Bureau of Investigation, and charged with murder and aggravated assault, investigators revealed in a statement.
The bureau also said that the father and son had confronted Arbery with two firearms, and it was Travis who had shot and killed the 25-year-old.
After footage of the incident hit social media earlier this month, the failure to bring charges against the father and son caused widespread outrage.
On May 6, US basketball icon LeBron James tweeted out about the case to his 45.9 million Twitter followers:
"We’re literally hunted EVERYDAY/EVERYTIME we step foot outside the comfort of our homes! Can’t even go for a damn jog man! Like WTF man are you kidding me?!?!?!?!?!? No man fr ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!!! I’m sorry Ahmaud(Rest In Paradise) and my prayers and blessings sent to the.....
"heavens above to your family!!"
Alongside the tweet, James posted a photograph of Arbery and a message as if the 25-year-old written it himself:
"I was murdered by an armed father and son who hunted me down and shot me as I jogged in a Georgia neighborhood. Neither of my killers have been charged. My name is Amhaud Arbery."
The image has since been widely shared on social media.
In the press release, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation also stated:
"We know you want and deserve answers as quickly as possible, and we do too.
"So when we ask for patience knowing it’s been over two months since the incident, we do so to allow our team to complete the investigation.
"We know this is difficult and is not only affecting the Brunswick community, or Georgia, but the entire nation.
"We thank you for your understanding."
Gregory and Travis McMichael are currently being held without bond.
