‘Hunted down’: Ahmaud Arbery shooting, arrests draw emotional reactions in SC
South Carolina residents and leaders are reacting emotionally to the fatal shooting of Ahmaud Arbery, a young black man in Brunswick, Georgia, and the delayed arrests of two white men implicated in his death, which has drawn national outcry in the past week.
Arbery, 25, was killed Feb. 23 while jogging. Two white men, Gregory McMichael and his son, Travis McMichael, are accused of chasing down the black man, whom the men said they believed was a burglar, and shooting him. For more than two months, local authorities declined to make any arrests in the killing.
But Arbery’s death rose to national attention this week when a video of the shooting surfaced and was widely shared, prompting the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to step in. On Thursday, the McMichaels were arrested and charged with murder and aggravated assault.
The killing, with its stark racial divide, and the widespread responses to it share familiar elements of another racially-tinged shooting that rocked South Carolina in recent years. In 2015, Walter Scott, an unarmed black man, was fatally shot from behind by a white North Charleston police officer, Michael Slager. Two years later, Slager was sentenced by a federal judge to 20 years in prison for violating Scott’s civil rights, after a mistrial was declared in an earlier murder trial in state court.
On Friday, which would have been Arbery’s 26th birthday, runners in South Carolina and across the nation planned to run 2.23 miles, in honor of the day of his death. Many shared messages of solidarity on social media using the hashtag #irunwithmaud.
“#IrunwithMaud this morning because arrests don’t equate to justice,” one Lexington runner tweeted.
“Today’s run was...different. Heavy. Necessary,” tweeted Paige Fennell, a Columbia high school teacher.
In the past week, prominent South Carolinians have decried Arbery’s killing.
Former S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley called Arbery’s death “beyond heartbreaking on every level” in a tweet Friday. “The number one question that needs to be asked is what took so long? Why did it take the public release of a video to have an arrest? Don’t just get answers but what processes will change so that this never happens again. #ThisHasToStop”
On Wednesday, former South Carolina Republican congressman Trey Gowdy appeared on Fox News, criticizing the justice system’s lack of early action in the Arbery shooting and also drawing comparisons to the Scott-Slager case in South Carolina.
“I guess my first question would be, ‘Why did it take the video?’” said Gowdy, speaking to Fox News host Dana Perino. “If you have someone who is jogging, who is unarmed, who is shot and killed by officers who aren’t officers — they aren’t even law enforcement officers — why did they take video?”
U.S. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only black Republican in the Senate, called for justice in a tweet Thursday: “Every.single.time. The excuses pour in — ‘he looked suspicious’ … ‘we thought he was committing a crime ’… The fact remains, #AhmaudArbery was hunted down from a pickup truck and murdered in cold blood. My heart breaks for his family, and justice must be served.”
S.C. state Rep. Mandy Powers Norrell, D-Lancaster, tweeted Friday that she would make a proposal in the State House to “clean up (state law) so that someone can’t get away with killing a person in South Carolina based on assumptions and conjecture about their criminality. Hope Georgia legislators do the same.”
The Georgia shooting also has drawn emotional responses from South Carolina religious, medical and other spheres.
Dawn Staley, head coach of the South Carolina Gamecocks women’s basketball team, tweeted that she took part in Friday’s nationwide show of support for Arbery.
“Walked 2.23 miles x 2 for you #AhmaudAubrey because someone snatched your ability to do it for yourself. Happy birthday! May God give your family the strength to endure each day forward,” Staley wrote.
“I am sickened by the senseless, racist murder of a young man on a jog,” tweeted Jay Hardwick, an associate executive director for the S.C. Baptist Convention. “I am angered by systemic corruption that kept it quiet for 2 months. I am grieving for a suffering family & my weary brothers & sisters of color. God, help us. This must end. Let justice roll. #AhmaudArbery”
“Black lives are not disposable. I stand with the NAACP in calling for justice for Ahmaud Arbery, and the immediate resignation of the Jackie Johnson, the District Attorney who mishandled the case. #WeAreDoneDying,” tweeted Tiffany Adams, a Columbia-area pastor.
“I have great coworkers at @SCHospitals & classmates in @LibertyFellowSC. They may not completely understand my pain when horrific hate acts occur, but they listen & sympathize. I’m grateful,” tweeted Rozalynn Goodwin, vice president of the S.C. Hospital Association.
This story was originally published May 8, 2020 at 1:42 PM.
