Source: Sean Rayford / Getty
The recently surfaced videos selectively showing Ahmaud Arbery‘s past encounters with law enforcement appear to be a collective smear job in order to help convince the court of public opinion that the 25-year-old deserved to be hunted down and killed.
That criminal narrative has recently gained steam, including on Tuesday when the latest attempt to smear Arbery’s name was the release of bodycam footage from 2017 showing his arrest for shoplifting.
The arrest video being released followed separate police bodycam footage recorded that same year when an officer was shown trying (but failing) to Taser Arbery for an unclear suspicion.
The headlines screamed that Arbery had previously visited the same location he was accused of stealing from on that fateful day the McMichaels took the law into their own hands and carried out what they believed was justice — killing a Black thief.
Meanwhile, prior to the surveillance footage coming out, an unnamed alleged eyewitness of Arbery’s killing conveniently came forward to say he called the cops to report a man “milling about” inside an empty house right before the shooting took place.
