The white men who chased and killed Ahmaud Arbery as he ran on a residential street remained free for more than two months, with police and prosecutors appearing to accept their story that the young Black man was a fleeing criminal who turned and attacked before being fatally shot.
William “Roddie” Bryan, who recorded the cellphone video that showed the killing of Ahmaud Arbery and sparked outrage when it surfaced two months later, was convicted of murder Wednesday.
As jury selection got slowly underway Monday in the trial of three white men charged with fatally shooting Ahmaud Arbery as he was running in their Georgia neighborhood, potential jurors said they came in with negative feelings about the case and worried about the personal consequences of serving on the jury.
The slaying of the 25-year-old Black man sparked a national outcry fueled by graphic video of the shooting leaked online more than two months after Arbery was killed. Father and son Greg and Travis McMichael and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan are charged with murder and other crimes in Arbery’s death on Feb. 23, 2020, just outside the port city of Brunswick.