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New text messages suggest police may have “informally deputized” one of the suspects in the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery, while protesters demand the resignation of Georgia prosecutors for mishandling the investigation.
Arbery, 25, was running through a Brunswick neighborhood on Feb. 23 when he was fatally shot. Greg and Travis McMichael – father and son, respectively – were arrested two months later after video, purportedly leaked by Greg himself, showed the confrontation that resulted in Arbery’s death.
Arbery is African-American, and the McMichaels are white. Both men have been charged with felony murder and aggravated assault on Arbery.
AHMAUD ARBERY CASE: GEORGIA FATHER AND SON ARRESTED, CHARGED WITH MURDER
Text messages, first obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, show an exchange between police and a private citizen concerning a private construction site located one block away from where Arbery was shot. It’s the same construction site where Arbery was seen on surveillance footage before his death.
Larry English, who owns the construction site, reached out to police in December concerning trespassers on the property. English maintained a motion-activated camera system that sent alerts and a video clip whenever the cameras activated.
Officer Robert Rash of the Glynn County Police Department responded on December 20 to English’s concern, suggesting in the text exchange that Greg McMichael could help.
“Your neighbor at XX Satilla Drive is Greg McMichael. Greg is retired Law Enforcement and also a Retired Investigator from the DA’s office,” the text from Officer Rash read. “He said please call him day or night when you get action on your camera.”
McMichael retired last year as an investigator with the Brunswick District Attorney’s office.
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WSB-TV Channel 2 Action News separately investigated the texts, speaking to English’s lawyer, J. Elizabeth Graddy. She claimed that English did get the text message on December 20, but he did not see it until recently, suggesting that English did not ask McMichael to police the property for him.
“When I saw (the texts), I immediately understood that an organization had been developing in that neighborhood since at least December,” Graddy told Channel 2. “It appears that Gregory McMichael had been informally ‘deputized’ by the Glynn County Police Department.”
LaGrance Police Chief Lou Dekmar, a past president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, voiced a concern that officers seemingly offloaded what was a legitimate police call onto an effectively private citizen.
“I’m not aware of any accepted policy for referring someone that requires a police response to delegate that response to a former law enforcement officer who happens to live in the neighborhood,” said Dekmar.
Dekmar further noted that it gives the perception that McMichael had a relationship with the local law enforcement community tasked with investigating the shooting.
“If it’s not a real conflict, it’s certainly a significant perception of one,” he said.
The New York Times reported that S. Lee Merritt, a lawyer for the Arbery family, called for the officer who sent the text and “all participating parties” to be arrested.
“We believe this communication deputized a group of untrained men in the Satilla Shores community to hunt down suspected trespassers, causing the events of Feb. 23, 2020,” Merritt said, referring to the killing.
The increased scrutiny comes at a time when protesters have also gathered to call for the resignation of District Attorneys Jackie Johnson and George Barnhill for what they consider a total mishandling of the prosecution.
A group of protesters march from the Glynn County Courthouse to a police station after a rally to protest the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery, Saturday, May 16, 2020, in Brunswick, Ga. (AP Photo/Stephen B. Morton)
11 Alive News reported that a group, led by Just Georgia, traveled from Atlanta early Saturday morning, driving 300 miles to Brunswick in support of Arbery. The group called for the resignation of the attorneys after learning that Greg McMichael had worked for the DA’s office, which presents yet another conflict of interest in the investigation.
“Justice for Ahmaud is more than just the arrests of his killers,” said John Perry, president of the Brunswick NAACP chapter at the Saturday rally. “Justice is saying that we’ve got to clean up the house of Glynn County.”
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Johnson defended herself on a local radio show last week, saying the only mistake she had made “was trying to be helpful.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
