Ahmaud Arbery was shot twice in the chest and once on the hand, autopsy reveals gruesome details
Ahmaud Arbery was hit by three gunshot blasts, not two, on February 23, according to an autopsy. A report of the autopsy results released on Monday, May 11, showed that one shot grazed 25-year-old Arbery's right wrist, while the other two struck him in the chest. The jogger's blood tests for drugs and alcohol also came back negative, reports state.
The Glynn County coroner conducted the autopsy on February 24, a day after Arbery's death, and found that he died from two shotgun wounds to his chest, according to TMZ. The autopsy report emerged as Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr appointed Cobb County District Attorney Joyette Holmes to take over the case.
Father and son duo, 64-year-old Gregory McMichael — a former police officer — and 34-year-old Travis McMichael, shot 25-year-old Arbery dead on February 23 on a street in broad daylight while he was jogging. The pair reportedly suspected him to be a burglar running around the neighborhood. It was initially reported that Arbery was shot at least twice and was pronounced dead at the scene.
After a video of the assault was recently released on social media, the incident sparked a widespread racial outcry in the country and has led many to question why the suspects were arrested only after the outrage. No arrests were made in the case for over two months.
In the video released, three gunshots can be heard. The autopsy report was released by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), which made the arrest last week within two days of taking over the case from local law enforcement.
The autopsy report surfaced shortly after the Department of Justice (DOJ) stated that it is considering pursuing federal hate crime charges in the Ahmaud Arbery death case.
A DOJ spokesperson, Kerry Kupec, in a statement on Monday, May 11, said: "The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the US Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia have been supporting and will continue to fully support and participate in the state investigation."
"We are assessing all of the evidence to determine whether federal hate crimes charges are appropriate," Kupec continued. "In addition, we are considering the request of the attorney general of Georgia and have asked that he forward to federal authorities any information that he has about the handling of the investigation. We will continue to assess all information, and we will take any appropriate action that is warranted by the facts and the law."
The Justice Department's statement comes a day after Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr had asked the DOJ to investigate how the case was handled by Georgia law enforcement. Prior to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's involvement in the case last week, two prosecutors were replaced after they cited a potential conflict of interest as both had connections to Gregory McMichael.
"We are committed to a complete and transparent review of how the Ahmaud Arbery case was handled from the outset,” Carr said in a statement. “The family, the community and the state of Georgia deserve answers, and we will work with others in law enforcement at the state and federal level to find those answers."