White defendant in shooting death of Georgia black man used racial slur-investigator

One of the white men charged in the Georgia killing of Ahmaud Arbery used a racial slur after shooting the unarmed black man, an investigator for the prosecution said in court on Thursday, an explosive new allegation in one of the cases roiling race relations in the United States. Special Agent Richard Dial of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) quoted William Bryan as saying Travis McMichael uttered the slur after shooting Ahmaud Arbery in February. Bryan and McMichael are both defendants in the case.

"Mr. Bryan said that after the shooting took place before police arrival, while Mr. Arbery was on the ground, that he heard Travis McMichael make the statement: fucking nigger," Dial said in testimony in front of a Glynn County judge. The Arbery case triggered a national outcry after cellphone video of the Feb. 23 shooting was leaked on social media. Thursday's hearing was to determine if there is enough evidence for the case to go to trial.

Protests were expected outside the courthouse after more than a week of demonstrations across the United States over the May 25 death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, also a black American. Four officers have been charged in that case. As the first witness for the prosecution, Dial described how the three defendants - Bryan, Travis McMichael and his father Gregory McMichael - chased Arbery in pickup trucks and sought to trap him as he was jogging in their neighborhood.

"He just enjoyed running," Dial said of Arbery, adding that friends confirmed he had jogged frequently for exercise. Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son Travis, 34, are charged with murder and aggravated assault. Bryan, a neighbor of the McMichaels' who took the cellphone video, was charged with felony murder and attempt to illegally detain and confine.

Jason Sheffield, the attorney for Travis McMichael, pressed Dial on whether Bryan, who was questioned by Bryan's office in May, was promised leniency for possible cooperation with the prosecution when he cited the alleged racial slur. Dial said he was unaware of any such offer.

The three defendants were not charged until more than two months after the shooting. State police stepped in to investigate after the video was widely seen and Glynn County police took no action, and the GBI pressed charges. Police have said Gregory McMichael saw Arbery running in his neighborhood and believed he looked like a burglary suspect. The elder McMichael called his son and the two armed themselves and gave chase in a pickup truck, police have said.

Dial said video and other evidence indicated that the first of three shots from Travis McMichael's shotgun was to Arbery's chest. He said he knew that because of video showing the blood pattern on the front of the T-shirt he was wearing. "You see the front of his shirt is saturated with blood," Dial said. "The second shot is off camera as well but you do see the blood mist come into the camera screen."

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)