Travis McMichael

Travis McMichael (c. 1986- ) is one of three White men on trial for murder in the US for killing Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed Black jogger. His father, Gregory McMichael, and neighbour, William “Roddie” Bryan, are on trial with him. All three took part in his murder, but:

It was Travis who pulled the trigger.

Vigilante justice: On February 23rd 2020 down in Georgia in Satilla Shores, when they saw Arbery jogging through their White neighbourhood, they got in their pickup trucks and chased him down. They said Arbery had entered a house under construction (true – but so had White people, who they had neglected to chase down). And said he looked like a burglar they had seen (no burglaries had been recently reported in that neighbourhood).

Self-defence: Once they had him “trapped like a rat” (their words), Travis faced Arbery with his 12-gauge shotgun. He says Arbery hit him and then tried to take his gun. That part of the video takes place in front of Travis’s pickup truck and is hard to see, but they do seem to be struggling over the gun. Travis feared for his life and so shot Arbery dead.

The prosecution says that according to Georgia law you cannot start a fight and then claim self-defence:

“What does the kid who’s being bullied do? He takes it and he takes it and takes it until he can’t anymore and he finally shoves the one bully, and what does that bully do? BAM. Punches the target child, right? What’s the bully always say? ‘He started it. He pushed me. I was defending myself.’ The law knows people do this. The law knows people will goad other people into defending themselves so that they can claim, ‘I was acting in self defense.’ You can’t do that.”

They got Travis to admit that he saw Arbery with no knife, no gun, that he had made no threat. Meanwhile they had threatened him:

“Stop, or I’ll blow your fucking head off.”

Heritage not hate: Right on the front of Travis’s truck, where Travis feared for his life and fired his first shot, the licence plate had the old Georgia flag of 1956-2001, the one with the Confederate flag on it:

Travis’s lawyers were themselves racist! They wanted Black pastors removed from the court room, wanted the only Black person on the jury removed, called the trial a “public lynching” because of the “woke left mob” outside the courthouse. And even said, in their closing arguments:

“Turning Ahmaud Arbery into a victim after the choices that he made does not reflect the reality of what brought Ahmaud Arbery to Satilla Shores in his khaki shorts with no socks to cover his long, dirty toenails.”

Jury: 11 Whites and 1 Black person. Glynn County, Georgia, where the trial takes place, is one-fourth Black. During jury selection, you cannot give race as a reason to get rid of a possible juror, but clearly ways were found to get rid of all but one Black juror.

– Abagond, 2021.

Update: All three were found guilty of murder!!! They face a minimum sentence of life in prison.

See also:

• Ahmaud Arbery
• The Confederate flag
• vigilantes:
  • Kyle Rittenhouse
  • George Zimmerman
  • lynching
• bullying
• The term “woke”

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