Who was the man seen on surveillance footage multiple times at a Brunswick, Georgia property in the months before the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery? Now a lawyer for the homeowner has suggested that the figure on video might have just been there to get water from two faucets at the location.
“Although these water sources do not appear within any of the cameras’ frames, the young man moves to and from their locations,” attorney Elizabeth Graddy said in a statement obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The article described this as speculation.
The lawyer also brought up a clip in which the young man wear athletic clothes, and ran off at a jogger’s pace.
Arbery was shot and killed on February 23 during a confrontation with local men Travis McMichael, 34, and Gregory McMichael, 64. At the time, the elder defendant allegedly told cops that they had believed Arbery was a suspect in recent break-ins, and that son Travis opened fire in self-defense. No charges were immediately filed, but an arrest happened quickly after newly leaked video seemed to show that the defendants initiated the conflict.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is looking into security video from the home, which was under construction. It is owned by Larry English, who has said that nothing had been stolen from the residence. The AJC said they reviewed video showing the young black man appearing at the site on five occasions in the months leading up to the shooting, and being recorded on motion-sensor cameras linked to English’s phone. English lives 90 miles away. He reported the incidents to police, but said there was no theft. Footage has also showed other people at the site, and this too was reported to police by the homeowner.
On one of those nights, February 11, Travis McMichael reported a man being on the property, but police didn’t find anyone when they got there.
Attorneys for Arbery’s family have said that footage from the site on February 23 shortly before the shooting shows Arbery, and that he wasn’t doing anything illegal. The alleged victim’s family said that he was jogging.
The McMichaels have been denied bond, and have since lawyered up.
“Given the daily onslaught over the last several weeks of new information — some credible, some not so credible — you must also know how much work there still is to be done,” attorney Laura Hogue, one of the lawyers who represents Gregory McMichael, said in a press conference Friday, according to CBS News. “But significantly, we know several other critically important facts. Those facts point to a very different narrative than the one that brings you all here today. Those facts will be revealed where all facts that matter are revealed: in a courtroom.”
[Image via Atlanta Journal-Constitution screengrab]
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