BRUNSWICK — Sentencing for three white men convicted of killing a Black man running in their neighborhood has been set for Jan. 7.  

The victim’s family said it was the media that helped bring justice and, in particular, one local reporter who kept searching for answers. 

Travis and Greg McMichael and William “Roddie” Bryan were found guilty Nov. 24 of chasing Ahmaud Arbery in their pickup trucks before he was shot by Travis McMichael during a tussle over Travis’ gun.

Sentencing is scheduled for 10 a.m., Jan. 7, at the Glynn County (Georgia) Superior Courthouse.

THE VERDICTS

A jury of 11 white people and one Black person found Travis McMichael guilty on all counts in the murder of Arbery; one count of malice murder, four counts of felony murder, two counts of aggravated assault, one count of false imprisonment and one count of criminal attempt to commit a felony.

Greg McMichael was found guilty on all but the malice murder charge.

Bryan received guilty verdicts in more than half of the charges – three of them for felony murder and a guilty verdict for aggravated assault, false imprisonment and criminal attempt to commit a felony.

Malice and felony murder convictions require a minimum sentence of life in prison and a judge can decide whether the convict can become eligible for parole after 30 years, according to Georgia law; a spokesperson for prosecutors would not comment on what the state’s recommended sentencing will be. Each of the defendants’ attorneys have indicated plans to appeal.  

A REPORTER’S SEARCH FOR ANSWERS

From the day of the shooting Feb. 23,2020, the case was plagued with controversy and skepticism with police treating it as a case of self-defense and Arbery being painted as a burglar.  

Reporter Larry Hobbs of the Brunswick News, despite resistance from agencies that did want want to release information related to the shooting, and not being able to get his hands on the actual police report until more than five weeks later, simply didn’t let go of the case.

The only information authorities would disclose the day the shooting was that someone was shot and killed on a street in Satilla Shores.

“The next day police were saying nothing and (just) that the district attorney’s office was investigating.This is a small community newspaper and, frankly, we’re understaffed. You know, I’ve got a lot of other things going on but this is an important thing and I’m not letting it go,” Hobbs recalled.  “I wanted to find out more information. And I kept a poker in the fire. Glynn County Police had always been pretty good about giving me stuff. On this [case], nothing.”

Former Glynn County District Attorney Jackie Johnson was indicted Sept. 2 on charges of violation of the oath of public office and obstruction of a police officer for “showing favor and affection” to Greg McMichael, a former employee of her office, and “failing to treat Ahmaud Arbery and his family fairly and with dignity.”

That indictment also alleges Johnson directed two police officers not to place Travis McMichael under arrest after shooting Arbery.

Immediately after recusing her office from the investigation, she is accused of recommending the case to Waycross Judicial Circuit DA George Barnhill, who also had a potential conflict of interest. The Cobb County District Attorney’s Office, ultimately handled the case.

Until he got the police report and later audio from Greg McMichael’s call to 911 in April 2020, Hobbs said he wrote small updates when finding out bits and pieces of information related to the shooting.  

As Hobbs’ persisted, other news outlets starting reporting on it, drawing more interest in the case across the nation, and in the city of just over 16,000 people — 55% of them Black and 40% white. Black people, however, make up only 25% of the population of Glynn County, where Brunswick is the county seat.

“I was thinking in the back of my head he’s a Black guy—we don’t always mention Black and white or race in stories unless it’s an issue—but why was there a 25-year-old man dead in the middle of the street and then they’re saying, ‘We’re hearing that it might have been a burglary?’ Okay, with a burglary you shoot somebody at home. No, this is somebody shot dead in the middle of the street? It wasn’t adding up,” Hobbs said. 

Hobbs said during the ordeal he received hostile emails from people all over the country, accusing him of being racist after reporting the contents of the police report, which gave Greg McMichael’s accounts of what happened.

He recalled some of the contents of the reports he received from police, such as Greg McMichael telling an officer he saw a Black guy running down the street, so he and Travis grabbed their gun, got in their pickup truck, chased Arbery, and demanded he talk to them before Arbery was killed.

The report said they thought Arbery was a burglar and suggested Greg McMichael had blood on his hands from turning Arbery’s body over to see if he was armed, Hobbs said.

“I just put it out there and obviously it was wrong because it enraged a lot of people, but it’s not up to me to tell people that it’s wrong to say a person’s running down my street, therefore, I’m going to go get my son, I’m going to get a truck and I’m going to chase this man to a deadly confrontation,” Hobbs said. “Figure that out for yourselves. But a lot of people, I guess, think I should have said that they’re murderers and they’re killers, and I can’t say that yet because I need to find out more information.”

A few emails came from people — mostly white people, Hobbs said — telling the reporter that he’d find out the Arbery’s murder was in self-defense.

The McMichaels and Bryan were arrested in May 2020, more than two months after the shooting and after protests ensued following the leak of Bryan’s video that captured the shooting.

The persistent coverage likely led to Bryan’s attorney leaking the video, which he apparently thought supported the McMichaels’ claim of self-defense. 

Surveillance video shown during the nearly three-week trial showed Arbery inside a home under construction in the Satilla Shores neighborhood on several occasions, but he was never seen taking anything from the property.

Attorneys for the McMichaels argued they were attempting to perform a citizen’s arrest on Arbery, who they believed was responsible for the burglaries at the home under construction; Bryan later joined the pursuit upon seeing Arbery run by his home with the McMichaels following behind in their pickup truck.

Hobbs said the Brunswick community appears a bit more at ease following the conviction in the case that’s put the small community in the national spotlight. majority of the community seems to support the verdict, he said.

“People were frankly worried about what might happen if these 11 white people and one black person jury found not guilty verdicts,” Hobbs said. “What would happen in our little community? And more than that, I think people wanted justice and most people thought justice was a guilty verdict. Even some traditional ‘good ol’ boys’ that I’ve encountered talking, fishing or something and I don’t really know them, they’re like, ‘By the way, I think that (verdict) came out about right. I think that they got what they needed.'”

THE IMPORTANCE OF LOCAL JOURNALISM

“She said that she’d been given misinformation and she didn’t know that her son had been shot on the street and not in somebody’s house until she read it in the local newspaper,” Hobbs said.  “And she told me the same thing nearly a year later when I did a one year anniversary on the story, and I finally got to interview her in person. She said, ‘Thank God for the Brunswick News.'”

“Local newspapers have an important role to play, and they can find themselves in a situation like this where they have a very vital role to play and sometimes it’s a matter of just doing your job as best you can,” Hobbs said.  

Pew Research Center reported this year that newspaper industry’s revenue and subscriber base have been in decline since the mid-2000s, though website audience traffic has grown significantly.

Since 2006, Pew Research data shows a huge drop in newspaper advertising revenue, an estimated $49.2 billion in revenues in 2006 down to just $8.8 billion in 2020.

According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, nearly 31,000 people worked in the newspaper industry in 2020, a 57% decline from 2004. 

Arbery’s aunt, Theawanza Brooks, said the media helped bring justice in her nephew’s death.  

“I think that with the media getting involved, it helped circulate faster throughout the world. Most times when the media isn’t involved in cases, they can easily be tossed to the side and no one cares. The media helped shed light,” Brooks said.