BRUNSWICK, Ga. — The case of a south Georgia man who was killed while jogging has sparked protests and caught the world's attention.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Gov. Brian Kemp, and many other prominent figures have all commented on the Ahmaud Arbery case in the last 24 hours.
The shooting happened on February 23, but more than two months later, there has been no arrests.
On social media, a video that claims to show the shooting is hard to escape. Arbery's family attorney Lee Merritt says it shows the 25-year old's final moments.
“What is seen depicted in that video is a crime. It's the crime of murder,” Merritt said.
Wanda Cooper, Arbery’s mother, said she can't bring herself to watch it.
“I don't think that I will ever reach the mental capacity to ever watch the video. I saw my son come into the world and seeing him leave the world is not something that I want to see,” she said.
The video shows a car following Arbery while he's jogging down a street in Brunswick, Georgia.
There’s a pick-up truck just ahead, stopped in the middle of the road. The video then shows Arbery and a man struggling just before he was shot. You can hear at least three gunshots in the video.
Police said two of the people involved in the incident are Greg and Travis McMichael, a former officer turned District Attorney’s office investigator and his son. They told police, Arbery looked like a burglary suspect and they were making a citizen's arrest.
“These men were vigilante, and a posse in a modern-day lynching,” Merritt said. “Some obscure, indistinct crime in the community does not empower the entire community to hunt down a black man.”
The shooting happened just three days before the anniversary of the Trayvon Martin killing in Florida in 2012. The Martin family attorney, Ben Crump, has now joined the Georgia case.
“It's been two and a half months since this tragedy took place. How long, how long will it take before the killers of Ahmaud Arbery are finally arrested and put behind bars,” Crump asked.
On a zoom call Wednesday morning, Arbery’s family described him as an avid runner with a good spirit. He would have been turning 26 years old soon.
“Ahmaud didn't deserve to go out the way he went out. He did not deserve that at all,” Cooper said about her son.
11Alive has learned, it wasn’t until almost two months after the shooting that the Glynn County District Attorney’s office recused itself because of McMichael’s ties to the office.
The case was turned over to District Attorney Tom Durden in Liberty County.
Tuesday night, he formally asked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to investigate.
The state has now initiated that case transfer, according to the GBI.
Merritt said he expected an arrest in the case on Wednesday but that had not happened around 6 p.m. The GBI told 11Alive, until they have the full case file, the previous investigator can make decisions in the interim. We reached out to Liberty County DA's office about whether there's an impending arrest. They have not responded.
The Reveal is an investigative show exposing inequality, injustice, and ineptitude created by people in power throughout Georgia and across the country. It airs Sunday nights at 6 on 11Alive.