Ahmaud Arbery Shooter—And Killer’s Father—Sentenced To Life In Prison For Second Time

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A federal court sentenced Travis and Gregory McMichael—two white men involved in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black jogger—to life in prison on Monday, after a state court also handed down life sentences, while a third man was handed 35 years in prison for his involvement in the 2020 murder that helped fuel nationwide protests over racial injustice.

Travis McMichael looks on during the sentencing = of his state criminal trial.

Associated Press

Key Facts

Travis McMichael—who fatally shot Arbery while he jogged in McMichael’s neighborhood—was sentenced to life in prison plus 10 years, while his father Gregory McMichael—who was involved in chasing Arbery—was sentenced to life in prison, six months after they were both found guilty of federal hate crimes.

A judge rejected the McMichaels’ requests to serve some of their sentences in federal prison after Arbery’s family said they opposed such treatment.

William Bryan, the McMichaels’ neighbor who filmed the incident, was also sentenced to 35 years in prison, according to the Associated Press.

The sentencing comes as the three men are already serving life sentences for murder resulting from a state trial in November.

Key Background

After spotting Arbery in their neighborhood in Georgia in February 2020, the three men chased him in trucks, before Travis McMichael fatally shot Arbery while his neighbor Bryan filmed the incident on his phone. Arbery’s murder went largely unnoticed until footage of his death was made public more than two months later. The McMichaels were arrested two days later and Bryan was taken into custody on May 21, 2020. The McMichaels and Bryan were found guilty in February of all federal charges against them, including hate crimes, the use of a firearm to commit a crime and attempted kidnapping. Defense lawyers had argued the three men chased Arbery to catch him for the police because they believed Arbery to be a burglary suspect, and that they shot him in self-defense. Federal prosecutors, meanwhile, argued racism fueled the three men’s decision to chase and kill Arbery, with witnesses testifying the men frequently made racist jokes and were public about their negative feelings toward Black people. Arbery’s murder drew media attention and came just months before George Floyd’s murder at the hands of a police officers in Minneapolis, which drove Black Lives Matter protests across the country in the summer of 2020.

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