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.
Two years after Arbery fell dead on Feb. 23, 2020, the trio responsible for the deadly pursuit has seen its version of events rejected in court. After two trials held a few months apart, the three men have been convicted not only of murder, but also of federal hate crimes.
Amid a national reckoning over racial injustice in the criminal legal system, the back-to-back guilty verdicts have bolstered Arbery’s family and local activists who initially feared the killing just outside the Georgia port city of Brunswick might go unpunished.
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