Georgia Judge Sets January 7, 2022 Sentencing Date For Three Men Convicted Of Killing Ahmaud Arbery

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A Georgia judge set a Jan. 7 sentencing hearing for the three men convicted of killing 25-year-old jogger Ahmaud Arbery.

Travis McMichael, his father, Greg, and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan were convicted of murder and other charges for the brutal Feb. 23, 2020, shooting of Arbery.

It happened in broad daylight and the video captured it in gruesome detail.

A police report at the time of the shooting indicates that the elder McMichael told authorities Arbery was a suspected burglar who he had seen “hauling a–” down the street before the chase began.

The McMichaels grabbed guns, hopped in a truck, and took off after Arbery. Bryan later joined the chase in another truck and used it to cut off the victim’s escape.

Smartphone video of the slaying showed Arbery jogging down a residential street before he encountered two armed men and a pickup truck on the side of the road. He tried to jog around their vehicle, into the shoulder. Bryan was recording the video.

But as Arbery neared the front, a gunshot rang out, and then he was seen struggling with a man holding a shotgun. They moved out of the frame, and another shot was heard. They came back into view, with a long-barreled gun held to the jogger’s midsection – and a third shot sounded off.

At the end of a two-week trial in November, Travis McMichael was convicted on all nine counts. Jurors convicted his father on eight of nine counts, finding him not guilty of malice murder. They found Bryan guilty of five, including three for felony murder.

Travis McMichael testified that he tried to talk to Arbery, claiming he recognized him from surveillance video, but the young man kept running. He argued self-defense, accusing the unarmed Arbery of trying to grab his gun.

Jurors rejected that argument.

Judge Timothy Walmsley set the sentencing for 10 a.m. on Friday, Jan. 7, at the Glynn County Courthouse in Brunswick.

All three men face minimum sentences of life in prison. Whether they will have a possibility of parole will be determined at sentencing. Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty.