Killer dad called 911 before shooting Ahmaud Arbery: 'There's a black male running down the street'
The 911 call made by Gregory McMichael before he and his son Travis shot and killed 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery in broad daylight has been revealed.
MEA WorldWide previously reported how Gregory, 64, and Travis, 34, were still free more than two months after they chased down and killed Arbery while he was innocently jogging in the Satilla Shores neighborhood of Brunswick, a coastal city between Savannah and Jacksonville.
The case has hit national headlines in recent days after renewed interest and the 911 call made by Gregory appears to indicate he had little motive to pursue Arbery.
"Hello. Err, I'm out here in Satilla Shores. There's a black male running down the street," he says, before adding, "I don't know what street we're on" when he's asked by the operator for their exact location.
He suddenly breaks off the call at this point with an inaudible shout and appears to speak to his son, "Goddamn it, c'mon Travis."
For the remainder of the 4:46 call, the operator keeps asking the father-son duo for information and asks repeatedly, "Hello, where you at?" only to be left hanging.
The call is said to taken place just moments before they confronted and fatally shot Arbery, and was one of two that were made regarding the latter's allegedly suspicious behavior.
In the other, which was made to a non-emergency number of the Brunswick Police Department, the caller, who has not been identified, reports seeing a suspicious man in a house that was under construction.
"There's a guy in the house right now, a house under construction," he says. He then shares with the operator that the property was at 219 or 220 Satilla Drive, which would be around 500 yards from the home where Travis and Gregory live.
When the operator asks if someone was breaking in, the caller responds, "No, it's all open, it's under construction. And he's running right now, there he goes right now."
He goes on to say that he saw the suspicious man "running down the street" and claims he had previously seen him in the neighborhood as well.
"He's been caught on the camera a bunch before at night," he tells the operator. "It's kind of an ongoing thing out here."
Questioned about his appearance so someone can be sent down to "check it out," the caller says, "Black guy, white t-shirt. And he's gone running back into the neighborhood."
By the time police arrived at the scene, Arbery had already been shot dead. However, neither Gregory nor Travis was arrested.
According to the Glynn County police report, Gregory told investigators he thought Arbery was a burglary suspect and had ordered him to stop. The 64-year-old claimed that Arbery did not listen, and instead, "violently" attacked his son. The two then fought "over the shotgun" before Travis shot him twice.
A prosecutor then refused to press charges against the duo, arguing that there was no probable cause for an arrest because the McMichaels had been legally carrying their weapons under Georgia law.
And because Arbery was a "burglary suspect," he said they were within their rights to follow him and were able as private persons to "arrest an offender if the offense is committed in his presence or within his immediate knowledge".
That prosecutor, George Barnhill, eventually recused himself from the case, over an apparent conflict of interest because of Gregory's past as a police detective and district attorney investigator.
The case eventually went to District Attorney Thomas Durden, based in Hinesville, which is 70 miles away from the shooting scene, and who has promised to take the case to a grand jury as soon as the coronavirus pandemic allows for it.