The father and son vigilante duo who killed a 25-year-old man while trying to make a “citizens arrest” reportedly had a run-in with him 2 weeks before he was shot dead in the street.
This new report comes from a neighbor who said he witnessed the altercation.
RELATED: Report: GA Homeowner Says Ahmaud Arbery Didn’t Steal From His Property [1]
From Daily Mail [2]
The father and son who killed Ahmaud Arbery had a confrontation with the unarmed jogger two weeks before he was shot, according to one neighbor.
Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son Travis McMichael, 34, were charged with murder after a video of them pursuing Arbery in a pick up truck and then shooting him dead in a Brunswick, Georgia street on February 23 surfaced online last week.
Now neighbor Diego Perez says the two men had already approached their victim on February 11, after spotting him at the same construction site Arbery is thought to have looked round on the day of his death.
Perez told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: ‘Travis saw him in the yard and Travis stopped. He confronted (the man) halfway into the yard. He said (the man) reached for his waistband, and Travis got spooked and went down the road.’
Travis is said to have returned with his father, who was armed and who had called the local police.
Perez said he witnessed the February 11 incident after the property owner, Larry English, who lived two hours away, asked him to keep an eye on the site.
After a motion sensor camera had been set off, Perez headed to the construction area, where he saw the McMichaels and the man he believes to have been Arbery.
Perez said nothing was taken from the home, adding: ‘All we knew about him was that he was the guy who kept showing up on our cameras. No one knew who it was.’
The next time he saw Arbery was the day he was shot dead, Perez says.
The neighbor’s story does confirm a story that Gregory McMichael reportedly told officers about “fearing” Arbery was armed because when they encountered him once before he “stuck his hand in his pants.”
Not sure how that suggests he was armed…
The homeowner of the property in question says that Ahmuad Arbrey did not steal anything from his home.
The vigilantes are claiming a “citizens arrest” defense, however, in order to do that you’d have to witness a crime and it does not sound like they did that from what we’ve heard thus far.
This piece was written by Missy Crane on May 13, 2020. It originally appeared in WayneDupree.com [3] and is used by permission.