In Arbery Case, Brunswick District Attorney Challenges Glynn County Commissioners’ Statements
Gregory McMichael, left, and his son, Travis McMichael, were charged last week in the February shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery. But officials are at odds over whether Glynn County law enforcement had been advised not to make arrests back in February.
Glynn County Detention Center via AP
Brunswick District Attorney Jackie Johnson, the first to recuse herself from the Ahmaud Arbery case, has sent a cease-and-desist letter to two Glynn County commissioners who say that district attorney’s office advised Glynn County law enforcement not to arrest anyone on the day of Arbery’s killing. Those commissioners say members of her office did offer that advice.
Gregory McMichael and his son, Travis, were arrested by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for the killing within days of the state agency being called in to work on the case. Gregory McMichael had recently retired as an investigator in Johnson’s office.
Glynn County Commissioner Peter Murphy said he’s been told by the police department that assistant district attorneys in Johnson’s office advised the officers responding on the day of Arbery’s killing in February that there was no need to arrest the McMichaels that day because they were not considered a flight risk.
Johnson said Monday on Jesup radio station WIFO that no advice from her office was given to law enforcement.
“That’s not true. I’ve got two attorneys. I trust them. It would not have been their duty or their obligation or their job to tell them one way or the other whether or not to make an arrest.”
Johnson formally asked the attorney general to be recused from the case later that week because of McMichael’s experience in her office.
The second prosecutor, George Barnhill, told officers he didn’t think there was a need for any arrests the day after the killing, before being formally assigned to the case by the attorney general. A fourth district attorney took on the case this week, Joyette Holmes from Cobb County.
Glynn County Commissioner Allen Booker spoke about the case on Atlanta radio station WAOK on Monday.
“The protocol is to follow [the district attorney’s] lead, by the police, because they’re the ones that have to get the conviction,” he said.
“If the police arrest people and then they’re not charged with anything then it looks like they’re just arresting people for nothing. So they have to work with the DA’s office. … Her office, and I believe, she herself, was involved from the very beginning.”
A Glynn County police department spokesman forwarded all queries to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which declined to comment on the Ahmaud Arbery case as it remains an open investigation.
Johnson’s lawyer Jim Stein sent a letter to the Glynn County attorney Tuesday arguing that Murphy and Booker’s statements “amount to libel and slander … your clients are put on notice that they should immediately cease and desist from making any statements that Jackie Johnson and/or anyone associated with the Brunswick Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s office advised any law enforcement official that no arrest should be made in the investigation pertaining to Ahmaud Arbery.”
Stein asked that retractions be made.
“I’m just reporting what the police told me,” Murphy said. “I have no reason not to believe them. If she wants to sue me for that, I guess there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“It angered me that the police were being made to be the scapegoats in this situation,” he said. “We’ve had some terrible problems in our police department, but they were attributed and have been attributed to some really, really bad individuals. But I think the vast majority of our officers are really good people who work hard.”
Emily Green contributed reporting to this story.
For a deeper exploration of Ahmaud Arbery’s story, listen to WABE’s podcast, “Buried Truths.” Hosted by journalist, professor, and Pulitzer-prize-winning author Hank Klibanoff, season three of “Buried Truths” explores the Arbery murder and its direct ties to racially motivated murders of the past in Georgia.
Top Stories
