CONTACT:
District45@council.nyc.gov
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NEW YORK — Council Member Farah Louis (D-Brooklyn) issued the following statement after a jury found the three white men convicted of killing Ahmaud Arbery guilty of federal hate crimes.

STATEMENT BY COUNCIL MEMBER LOUIS

“On Tuesday, a jury found Gregory McMichael, his son, Travis McMichael, and William Bryan guilty on all counts of hate crimes, for their hateful, racist, and abhorrent murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black man out for a jog in the Georgia neighborhood of Satilla Shores, until the three men jumped into their vehicle, guns in hand, and chased Ahmaud down, brutally murdering him with multiple shots from their shotguns. 

“Justifying their crime on a series of recent robberies in their neighborhood, when seeing a man “running while black” past their houses, they deemed it just for them to take justice into their own hands and arrest the man, citing the shooting as an act of self-defense. Hoping for the same stamp of approval Kyle Rittenhouse received last autumn, these men were thankfully denied any acquittal, as cooler heads prevailed and both the Georgia jury and the federal jury rejected these claims, and now these three vile and evil men will spend the rest of their lives behind bars. 

“It was disheartening at first to hear that prosecutors had offered these men a plea deal initially, as it shows just how imbalanced and racist our justice system truly is, but its rescinding, and the subsequent conviction, can finally bring justice to Ahmaud Arbery and his grieving family.”

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