(ABC NEWS) — The mother of Ahmaud Arbery, the 25-year-old African American whose slaying has prompted protests in Georgia, said on Monday that the arrest of a white father and son in the killing has given her “a sense of hope” that justice will be served.
In an interview on ABC’s “The View,” Wanda Cooper-Jones said she had feared that the killing of her son would be swept under the rug until a cellphone video surfaced online last week showing Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son, Travis McMichael, 34, shooting her son, who his family says had been out for a jog in a neighborhood near the port city of Brunswick.
The video, which captured the confrontation and three loud gunshots, was posted online on Tuesday by a local attorney and led to prosecutors filing murder and aggravated assault charges against Gregory McMichael, a retired Glynn County, Georgia, police officer and investigator with Brunswick’s district attorney’s office, and his son Travis.
Gregory and Travis McMichael told investigators that when they saw Arbery running through their neighborhood they thought he resembled a man suspected of burglarizing homes in the area.
On Sunday, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr formally requested that the U.S. Department of Justice conduct an investigation into the handling of the Arbery case and why it took more than two months to arrest the McMichaels.
