SAVANNAH, Georgia (AP) – When white men armed with guns chased and killed Ahmaud Arbery while he was running through the neighborhood, few outside the port city of Brunswick, Georgia, paid much attention at first.
A year later, while three men await trial in the February 23, 2020 murder, those closest to the 25-year-old black man sought to ensure that Arbery’s death was not forgotten again.
Arbery’s mother filed a civil lawsuit on Tuesday accusing the men accused of her son’s death and the local authorities who responded first to the shooting for violating their civil rights. The complaint filed by Wanda Cooper-Jones in the U.S. District Court seeks $ 1 million. Lawyers for the men accused of killing Arbery said they suspected he was a thief and did not commit any crime.
Members of Arbery’s family in Brunswick were due to participate in a memory procession on Tuesday night in the subdivision of Satilla Shores, where he fell bleeding in the street because of three shotguns at close range. Other relatives planned a candlelight vigil at a church in Waynesboro, where Arbery is buried in his mother’s hometown. At the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta, Democratic lawmakers joined civil rights activists to mark the anniversary.
“It’s important to remind people of their origins when it all started,” said Jason Vaughn, football coach at Arbery’s school and organizer of the Brunswick event. “For a long time, it was like we were screaming in the dark and no one was listening.”
Immediately after the shooting, the police interviewed the men chasing Arbery and let them go free. The first prosecutor assigned to the case saw no reason to file the charges. Arbery’s family’s pleas for justice were not heard as Georgia and the country entered the confinement of the coronavirus pandemic.
Arbery had been dead for more than two months when a cell phone video of the shooting leaked online on May 5 and a national outbreak broke out. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the case the next day and quickly arrested the sniper, Travis McMichael; his father, Greg McMichael; and neighbor Roddie Bryan on murder charges.
Indignation over Arbery’s murder was still simmering when a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd on May 25, sparking protests across the U.S. denouncing racial injustice.
In Brunswick, Arbery’s death served as a warning to many residents, both black and white, that they need to be more active in holding elected officials accountable, said Rev. John Perry. He served as president of the NAACP chapter in Brunswick at the time of the assassination. Now he is running to be the next mayor of the city.
“Previously, we elected people to the job and trusted that they would do the right thing,” said Perry. “The failure to do justice to Ahmaud’s situation said that we needed to do more as citizens.”
In November, voters irritated by Arbery’s death dismissed prosecutor Jackie Johnson. Greg McMichael worked as an investigator for Johnson, whom many blamed for having played a role in backward arrests, a charge she denies.
In the meantime, Republican Governor Brian Kemp is asking Georgia lawmakers to eliminate an 1863 state law that authorizes private citizens to arrest. The prosecutor initially assigned to the Arbery case cited that law when he concluded that the murder was justified.
McMichaels’ lawyers said they pursued Arbery suspecting he was a thief after security cameras recorded him entering a house under construction. Travis McMichael is said to have shot Arbery while fearing for his life while they fought for a shotgun. It was Bryan, the third defendant, who made the cell phone video of the shooting in the driver’s seat of his truck.
Prosecutors said Arbery didn’t steal anything and was just running when the McMichaels and Bryan chased him. They remain in custody without bail.
The anniversary march and the memory race were organized by the 2:23 Foundation, a group founded by Vaughn and Arbery’s cousin, Demetris Frazier, to combat systemic racism.
The foundation worked last fall to register 18-year-old high school students to vote. Now its members and other local activists are lobbying for the creation of a citizen review panel for the Glynn County Police Department, which initially responded to Arbery’s murder.
Vaughn, who trained Arbery at Brunswick High School, said that planning for the anniversary has been tiring. For him, Arbery’s murder remains painfully recent.
“You want to make sure you keep Ahmaud’s name alive, but it’s like reading an obituary indefinitely,” said Vaughn. “It is like reliving the past again. You have to stay strong. “