A second witness testified that Gregory McMichael, one of three men charged with murder for the death of Ahmaud Arbery, didn’t know whether or not the jogger had committed a crime prior to pursuing him.
According to CNN, on Wednesday (Nov. 10), Roderic Nohilly, a police sergeant in Georgia’s Glynn County, was the state’s seventh witness to take the stand in the murder trial. He said that he spoke with McMichael after the shooting at the police department headquarters. He read a transcript of their conversation to the jury. Nohilly asked McMichael, “Did this guy break into a house today?”
“Well that’s just it. I don’t know,” McMichael replied, according to the transcript.
“I told what’s her name out there … ‘Listen, you might want to go knock on doors down there because this guy had just done something that he was fleeing from,’” McMichael said, referring to a female Glynn County cop who he talked to about the shooting. “He might have gone in somebody else’s house.”
Nohilly also testified that McMichael told him that he “never laid eyes” on Arbery before the fatal shooting.
McMichael, along with his son Travis McMichael and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan are charged with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, false imprisonment and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment for Arbery’s death. The 25-year-old was followed and gunned down by the McMichaels and Bryan, who allegedly hit Arbery with his truck, as he jogged through a Georgia neighborhood. The three men were not arrested for Arbery’s death until months later when Bryan’s cell phone video of the shooting became public.
The three men also face federal charges, including attempted kidnapping and one count of interference with rights, which is a hate crime. Additionally, the McMichaels were federally indicted for using a firearm during a crime of violence. The trial for the suspects’ federal charges is set to begin next February.