Ahmaud Arbery

[John Anthony]

But the defense will make the case this isn't about the shooters, it'll be about the victim. You know, a lifelong thug who was out casing his next score. They followed him down after he ran from the crime scene. After getting in front of him, they'll say he refused to lie face down on the pavement and wait for authorities, and then reached for one of their guns. After that, it was either kill or be killed. Simple self-defense.

 

You tell that story to 12 jurors who haven't seen/heard of the video...and what's the prosecutor going to come back with?

 

They did not see him committing any crimes at the time they chased him down, that would make the pursuit illegal.

 

They chased him down 3 on 1, disparity of force already in play, then to add they were well armed.

 

He found himself in a situation where there was nowhere to run or hide, he had 3 guys circling him and tried to fight them off. When you go to make a citizens arrest, you face a lot of legal liability to begin with, when you do it with firearms, you’re going to face a lot more, especially, when the person pursued dies as a result of their illegal pursuit.

 

Had it been a police officer approaching him for questioning instead of 3 random citizens, he’s still alive.

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

Would people assume he were at the construction site to steal if he were white?

 

Absolutely, yes. I do not, repeat, do NOT think these folks should have even so much as followed Arbery down the street after he left the construction site, but seeing that video, it is my assumption that he was looking to see what was in the house to steal.

 

With the amount of theft that occurs on construction jobsites, I assume that anyone who walks onto a jobsite who isn't an employee for the builder is showing up to steal something. In construction, we figure in tens of thousands of dollars on each and every project to cover for jobsite theft.

 

Looking at things from the perspective of construction management, my assumption is that regardless whether they're white, black, Asian, Hispanic, or other...when someone is "looking around" on my jobsite while no one else is there, then they're planning on stealing off of my jobsite. Just the reality of how it goes in construction. I've had anything and everything stolen off of jobsites, right down wet concrete. I've had Bobcats stolen off of my jobsites, steel I-beams, copper pipe and wire that were already in the walls, lumber, boxes of nails, concrete forms, fill dirt, sand, drywall, drywall mud, doors, roofing materials, siding...I even had a house in Cold Spring where my landscaper had put in all of the sod and it all disappeared the night after they laid it.

 

When I was the project manager for the construction of the Baldwin Center on Eden Park Drive in Cincy, we had 6" chainlink construction fence around the site and 2 armed guards on the jobsite during all non-working hours on the site, and we still lost almost $100,000 in material on that job.

[John Anthony]

You better use a little common sense and try to talk the matter out, because exercising any of your three options will not be successful.

 

That’s a luxury he didn’t have. You have to put things in real time motion/perspective. One minute he’s walking/jogging, the next he has 3 guys with guns trying to detain him out of the blue.

[4 Quarters]

That’s a luxury he didn’t have. You have to put things in real time motion/perspective. One minute he’s walking/jogging, the next he has 3 guys with guns trying to detain him out of the blue.

 

Again, one vs three, two has weapons and you're going to disarm them, crazy.

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

Here's the surveillance camera footage from across the street from the home that Amaud Arbery was in immediately prior to the shooting.

 

At the 13:31 minute mark you'll see Amaud Arbery walk down the street from the center-right of the screen, walk into the front yard of the house under construction, and then walk into the house through the garage door. Then he exits the garage, and walks around the side of the house towards the rear of the house.

 

At the 14:16 minute mark you'll see an individual walk down the perpendicular street at the top-left of the screen and stop, and position himself between 3 trees, appearing to observe what is going on in the house under construction.

 

At the 14:38 minute mark you'll see Amaud Arbery walk out of the house under construction through the front door, and appear to sprint through the front yard down the street.

 

Then at the 18:00 minute mark you'll see an ambulance, fire truck, and two police cars speed by, assumedly to respond to the shooting of Amaud Arbery.

 

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

Here's the other video snippet being shown in the media, showing Abery briefly inside the construction site.

 

[sportsfan41]

I knew no arrests were made immediately but didn't realize it was because the police officers were told by the prosecutors office not to arrest the two suspects. If this had already been posted i must have missed it.

 

On Friday, Two Glynn county commissioners revealed that Brunswick District Attorney Jackie Johnson’s office refused to allow police to arrest either of the suspects at the scene, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

 

“The police at the scene went to her, saying they were ready to arrest both of them,” Glynn County Commissioner Allen Booker said. “These were the police at the scene who had done the investigation. She shut them down to protect her friend McMichael.”

[Voice of Reason]

I knew no arrests were made immediately but didn't realize it was because the police officers were told by the prosecutors office not to arrest the two suspects. If this had already been posted i must have missed it.

 

On Friday, Two Glynn county commissioners revealed that Brunswick District Attorney Jackie Johnson’s office refused to allow police to arrest either of the suspects at the scene, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

 

“The police at the scene went to her, saying they were ready to arrest both of them,” Glynn County Commissioner Allen Booker said. “These were the police at the scene who had done the investigation. She shut them down to protect her friend McMichael.”

 

Things like that is what I was referring to in my post #247 above. If that prosecutor would have not prevented the police from making an arrest, this story would be going very differently.

[John Anthony]

Again, one vs three, two has weapons and you're going to disarm them, crazy.

 

Agreed, it is crazy but he probably saw no other option once the son got out of the truck with the shotgun. I’m sure they were screaming at him with weapons, it’s a chaotic situation.

[JDEaston]

Then why have surveillance cameras inside?

 

I dunno, maybe they were being hardwired into the walls during construction rather than adding them after the fact? He was on foot, how much was he going to be able to steal if that were his intentions? I'm not a thief but I'd imagine you would need a vehicle to steal anything worth much value at a construction site, most power tools and such that could be carried off easily are taken home or to the shop by the construction workers at the end of the day.

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

The house being built was left wide open, I doubt anyone left anything there worth any value to steal. Not to mention the victim didn't have anything stolen on him, a weapon, etc.

 

In other words you can't just kill someone because they may or may not have stole something.

 

That house it studded out and has the exterior finish on it. The next thing to go into it is ductwork, wiring, and plumbing rough-in. Probably about $1,000 to $1,500 in scrap value. My assumption is that those are the things AA was investigating when he walked in the house and looked around.

 

With the wiring, all you do is snip it all off at the fuse box, use about a half a roll of duct tape to attach the cut the ends to a tow rope you've got hooked onto the ball-hitch on a truck out in the driveway, then you drive the truck away with a grand in wiring as your truck pulls the wires straight out out of the stud walls. Takes all of 1 or 2 minutes to complete the entire task. All you need to do is poke around in the house ahead of time to make sure there's actually wiring in the walls. That's my assumption of what he was doing...casing the house.

 

Again though, that is not an excuse to kill anyone.

 

However, based on the old-timey citizens arrest laws in Georgia, I would guess that this is enough to get these guys off of any murder charges.

[JDEaston]

All of this back and forth and still nobody can tell me what the defense will use in court?

 

 

I'm not defending these guys at all, they're guilty of murder imo. But my stepfather was a defense attorney prior to retiring from that and becoming a state prosecutor, so I've seen both sides of arguing cases in my lifetime, including him getting three not guilty verdicts in murder cases that the defendants told him they murdered their husband's. So I'll bite, I'd ask him what his defense would be but unfortunately he has dementia now.

 

But given what you mentioned prior about the citizens arrest law in Georgia, as well as it being a stand your ground state I'd run with that and hope for the best.

 

So, here it goes. The two defendants knew of recent burglaries in their neighborhood and witnessed AA walking into a home under construction, they notified the person that filmed the video and asked them to call the police while they were trying to locate the suspect after he left the construction site. Once located they attempted to ask AA questions while waiting on the police to arrive but he attempted to disarm the younger defendant which feared that his shotgun could be used against him if he was disarmed, so he fired at AA until he was no longer a threat.

 

I hate to even type that because I believe they're guilty of murder myself. But I feel like the defense strategy could be something similar to that.

[JDEaston]

That house it studded out and has the exterior finish on it. The next thing to go into it is ductwork, wiring, and plumbing rough-in. Probably about $1,000 to $1,500 in scrap value. My assumption is that those are the things AA was investigating when he walked in the house and looked around.

 

With the wiring, all you do is snip it all off at the fuse box, use about a half a roll of duct tape to attach the cut the ends to a tow rope you've got hooked onto the ball-hitch on a truck out in the driveway, then you drive the truck away with a grand in wiring as your truck pulls the wires straight out out of the stud walls. Takes all of 1 or 2 minutes to complete the entire task. All you need to do is poke around in the house ahead of time to make sure there's actually wiring in the walls. That's my assumption of what he was doing...casing the house.

 

Again though, that is not an excuse to kill anyone.

 

However, based on the old-timey citizens arrest laws in Georgia, I would guess that this is enough to get these guys off of any murder charges.

 

But he didn't have a truck? He was on foot. He did play football though, maybe he was going to see what his 40 time would be dragging a few hundred feet of wire behind him.

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

But he didn't have a truck? He was on foot. He did play football though, maybe he was going to see what his 40 time would be dragging a few hundred feet of wire behind him.

 

See: 2nd and 3rd sentences of the second paragraph from my post.

 

"All you need to do is poke around in the house ahead of time to make sure there's actually wiring in the walls. That's my assumption of what he was doing...casing the house."

[JDEaston]

See: 2nd and 3rd sentences of the second paragraph from my post.

 

"All you need to do is poke around in the house ahead of time to make sure there's actually wiring in the walls. That's my assumption of what he was doing...casing the house."

 

I get what you're saying but you did say its an assumption. You don't run up on someone and start pointing guns at them over an assumption that they may or may not be casing a house. I don't believe that you would do that yourself for what its worth, most logical people wouldn't. The fact that these dudes did either tells me they're ignorant, or they had bad intentions to begin with.