Jogging in Georgia while black.

[Dave Rogers]

It could change who was charged. If the man in the pickup truck is pointing a gun at the jogger, he is committing a crime. If not, then he is merely a witness to a crime.

He was clearly acting in concert with the shooter. They clearly combined in an unlawful assault, in that he repeatedly drove the pickup truck to a position where they could make a credible and immediate threat to life. The outcome of that assault was the death of their victim. I can see no reasonable construction of events in which the driver is not guilty of a crime, and since the predictable result of that crime was the death of the victim, I can see no reasonable way in which he was not guilty of homicide.

Dave

 

[JoeMorgue]

You seriously think the tactical move is to rush them? Virtually guaranteed death.

I don't think we need to run a critique on a dead guy's fighting and evasion style in a thread about his murder and I simply cannot for the life of me come up with a non-disgusting reason you want to.

 

[Joe Random]

Let's have some fun here..

Lets assume that the person seen on the camera was indeed Arbery. Is there anything illegal about being on a building site that isn't yours?

Let's check Georgia Law.....



So... There is no reports of damage being done to the site, so that rules out (a) and (e).

(b) (2) he didn't have a vehicle (3) there is no evidence that the rightful owner told him to leave.

So that leaves (b) (1), and there is no evidence that he was at the building site for an unlawful purpose, so by Georgia Law, no Trespass was committed.

But let's say that he did have an unlawful purpose and thus did commit criminal trespass. (d) stats that such is a misdemeanor.

Now let's look at Citizens Arrest in Georgia Law.



Hmmm, spot the problem here. For a citizen's arrest to be made based on suspicion of the person having committed a crime, then the suspect must both being trying to escape, and the offence must be a Felony. Criminal Trespass, which we have already determined didn't happen, is a misdemeanor not a Felony. Thus there is no right to enact a citizen's arrest based on the suspicion that this was the same person as seen in the video. In fact those doing so were in danger of breaking this law....



because it is quite clear that they had no legal authority because even if he was the man on the security footage, there is no evidence of a law being broken by his mere presence on the building site, and all they had to go on was their suspicions of it being the same person, which is not enough to enact a Citizen's Arrest for a non Felony, such as Criminal Trespass.

This post may get buried in the thread, but I wanted to thank you for posting the above. The curiosity I had was "what if Arbery HAD been the one on video - would trying to citizen's arrest him after the fact at gunpoint have been legal?". Sounds like the answer is a pretty clear cut "NO".

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Thermal, perhaps people are being a bit reactive to your tactics discussion because very similar argument are being made by the killer's defenders (including local law enforcement) that Arbery's unarmed attack justified the killing.

"he shouldn't have attacked an armed man" is a sentiment that can mean many different things. Your "Shouldn't" might mean it was a bad tactical decision. The defenders of the killers are saying "shouldn't" means it was unlawful for Arbery to grab the shotgun and fight.

Sure, trying to wrestle away the shotgun was a move with poor chance of success. Obviously this is true, the dude is dead from a shotgun blast.

Surely you can see how tedious commenting about his tactics muddies the water here.

 

[Jim_MDP]

If they are allowed to force the confrontation and allowed to use guns in the process of a citizens arrest, then is it still brandishing?

He can be justified in defending himself and the shooters can be justified in trying a citizens arrest, and it can still not be murder. There doesn't need to be a party at fault.

X2
(crap... that was the wrong place to put "x2". I thought I was right after my own "placeholder" post. Oops. )

Bob I thought I'd see if anyone replied in the intervening ~30 posts... they didn't.

I understand the national standard for a CA is immediate pursuit of or in the company of a witness of, a suspect of a felony.
No legit felony CA... then brandishing applies.

Change my mind... O Socratic defender of the Harvard Debate Society Way (tm).

 

[Thermal]

I don't think we need to run a critique on a dead guy's fighting and evasion style in a thread about his murder and I simply cannot for the life of me come up with a non-disgusting reason you want to.

For the same reasons we analyze RFK's murder, or John Lennon's, or President Kennedy's, or Eric Garner's (another one for your lie collection, btw, that cop MURDERED Garner): discussing the variables that could have produced a better outcome.

Arbery's killing might show us how a tactical move failed, and why, but only as a sidebar to the main issue which is:

ARBERY WAS A VICTIM OF ARMED PSYCHO REDNECKS WHO THOUGHT THEY HAD LICENSE TO KILL

Please tell me you've kicked it out of screensaver and understand it now? No more lies and strawmen? Pretty please?

 

[CORed]

Thermal, perhaps people are being a bit reactive to your tactics discussion because very similar argument are being made by the killer's defenders (including local law enforcement) that Arbery's unarmed attack justified the killing.

"he shouldn't have attacked an armed man" is a sentiment that can mean many different things. You're "Shouldn't" might mean it was a bad tactical decision. The defenders of the killers are saying "shouldn't" means it was unlawful for Arbery to grab the shotgun and fight.

Sure, trying to wrestle away the shotgun was a move with poor chance of success. Obviously this is true, the dude is dead from a shotgun blast.

Surely you can see how tedious commenting about his tactics muddies the water here.

If their intent was to shoot him, then getting the shotgun away from the person holding it would have been his only chance. I don't think that's what I would have done in that situation, but I can see why he might have done it. OTOH, I've never had strangers point guns at me while I was minding my own business, so I can't say for sure what I would do in the heat of the moment. Certainly in a calm calculation, I would favor trying to talk them out of killing me over making a desperate grab for the shotgun, but calm calculation is not likely what I would do if somebody suddenly blocks my path and starts waving fierearms around.

In any case, it's a complete perversion of the concept of self defense to claim the shooting was justified, when they, with no good reason, forced him to fight for his life.

"We thought he looked like burglar" might be a "reasonable articulable suspicion" that would justify a real cop to stop, ID, and maybe frisk him, with weapon holstered unless the subject gets violent, but for an ex-cop who apparently forgot he was ex- who brandished a weapon and killed the guy when he tried to protect himself, it should be reason for him never to see the outside of a prison cell until he dies.

 

[bruto]

I think we're getting caught in a trap here, of post-event analysis.

Of course, whenever a terrible thing happens, we can look back on it and say "he should have done something different." We now know things we did not or could not know then. We're like the audience at a horror movie, yelling at the screen "No, don't open that door!"

Thieves came and stole my TV. I should have put better bars on the window. I should have had a different TV. I shouldn't have this or should have that. And of course, in some sense that's true. In some irrelevant, red-herring way, whenever a crime is committed, there's something we can point to afterward that redistributes the responsibility.

But when a crime is committed, it's the criminal who does it. When a bunch of yahoos in a pickup truck accost a jogger and kill him, it's their fault. All of it is their fault. When we look at the video and see what happened, and see what might have been done, it's useful to plan for our own future, but if we use it to evaluate the event itself, we are diving into a morass of moral equivocation and speculation and critique of inferred attitude, which at best is useless and at worst results in accusations, real or not, that we make victims the authors of their demise.

 

[Thermal]

Thermal, perhaps people are being a bit reactive to your tactics discussion because very similar argument are being made by the killer's defenders (including local law enforcement) that Arbery's unarmed attack justified the killing.

"he shouldn't have attacked an armed man" is a sentiment that can mean many different things. You're "Shouldn't" might mean it was a bad tactical decision. The defenders of the killers are saying "shouldn't" means it was unlawful for Arbery to grab the shotgun and fight.

Sure, trying to wrestle away the shotgun was a move with poor chance of success. Obviously this is true, the dude is dead from a shotgun blast.

Surely you can see how tedious commenting about his tactics muddies the water here.

It shouldn't have gone on for more than a brief comment or two. It went on and became 'tedious' because of others lying about the content/intent the posts.

Which, going meta, is the ISF Cluster **** Conundrum. Posters see a story like this and polarize to pro-killer and anti-killer standpoints. There's no reason for that in, of all places, a skeptics forum. I would expect a bunch of adults who value critical thinking could elevate themselves above Twitter discussion and look at multiple angles dispassionately.

I take an interest in self defense and fighting strategies, and am always interested in real-time testing. Here, it falls with something I've always advocated: don't rush a group of armed nuts when unarmed. There is a good time to run like hell to the sides, and this was one. We are not bulletproof.

 

[CORed]

My first post was a way of making fun of Bogative's response, because although we don't know a great many things, I think we know enough to draw some very easy conclusions, and although I am not a lawyer, I think I understand the basic legal questions here.


What we see on the video is that the men in/near the pickup truck were behaving in a threatening manner toward the jogger (by deliberately blocking his way.) It also appears that part of their threatening manner was display of and possibly pointing a weapon at the jogger. I say "appears" because I didn't watch the video frame by frame to be absolutely certain that the driver was threatening the jogger with the gun, but it sure seemed that way.

At that point, a reasonable person in the jogger's position would believe that he was in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm, and that escape from that situation was impossible. (i.e. you can't run away from a bullet, and the fact that they deliberately blocked his path would be perceived by a reasonable person as an aggressive act. A reasonable person would fear being shot in the back.)

In doing this, the men in the pickup truck have committed a crime. You can't go around pointing guns at people. You just can't. In some states, there's an exception if you happen to be in your house and he's breaking in, and in all states there's an exception if you are under a reasonable fear of death or great bodily harm, but there is no way any of those circumstances applied to the pickup truck people in this video. It's illegal to go pointing guns at people. Someone could get hurt.

So, the jogger's action, attempting to wrest the gun away from the driver, is justified. Preceiving himself to be under a threat of death or great bodily harm, he is justified in taking action to neutralize that threat, which he did, unsuccessfully.


Now, as a matter of principle, I must say that everyone is entitled to a fair trial, and even to the presumption of innocence, so we must remain open to the theoretical possibility that some future evidence will be presented that makes it clear that there was some extremely important but currently unknown (to us) piece of evidence that would put a completely different spin on what appears to have happened.

However, based on preliminary evidence, it seems these guys are guilty as sin. I suspect both of them, not just the man with the shotgun, because I think both of them brandished weapons. I would have to watch the video again to be sure about the guy in the bed of the truck, but I think he did.

Prosecutors and/or juries will have to decide exactly what charges will be filed and what the convictions will be, but if it isn't something, I will be very surprised, and the people of Georgia will be very angry.

Barring new evidence that changes things radically, I don't see how this is less than second degree murder for the shooter, with felony murder (if that is a thing in Georgia) charges for all participants, or assault charges at the least. Whether racially motivated or not (but I would bet a substantial amount that it was racially motivated), this was an assault with a deadly weapon that resulted in a homicide. This is behavior that ought to result in felony convictions and long prison sentences.

 

[Silly Green Monkey]

You know what really would be a good self defense and fighting strategy? If no one had picked up their guns and gone out to chase a jogger. His not leaving the road might point to him not being the trespasser, no? But maybe all black men look the same to them.

 

[JoeMorgue]

We aren't allowed to criticize the two white people's shotgun handling technique (which, apropos of nothing, was garbage. Dude didn't even had it set in his shoulder good. My instructor in Afghanistan would have bit my head off for handling a long arm that way) only the black guy's defense strategy.

 

[BobTheCoward]

We aren't allowed to criticize the two white people's shotgun handling technique (which, apropos of nothing, was garbage. Dude didn't even had it set in his shoulder good. My instructor in Afghanistan would have bit my head off for handling a long arm that way) only the black guy's defense strategy.

Of course you can. It is just boring to play out as the side that has the advantage, like Australia in risk.

 

[William Parcher]

I've never had strangers point guns at me while I was minding my own business, so I can't say for sure what I would do in the heat of the moment.

You haven't been the victim of armed robbery. Yes, that's a real gun pointed at your face from two feet away. The victim is always minding their own business.

 

[CORed]

Yep, just as expected, a complete and utter **** show here at the ISF – entertaining, but still a **** show.

On display is the normal prejudice, bigotry and racism towards southern white men. Lack of reading comprehension or the normal laziness of not bothering to read the links provided.

Accusing the DA of being part of the good ole boys club because he did not arrest two white guys for shooting a black guy just because they were white and the victim was black.

Accusations of the three men involved intentionally setting up an ambush so they can shoot a black guy. "****** hunting" as another poster describes it. That just points out a small portion of the absurdities in this thread.



The saddest part is how many people here actually believe this all started because some black guy was jogging down the street.


For those who are too lazy to read links provided in this thread, here's how it actually started:

If that narrative is true, it's still assault and murder. Possibly not racially motivated. Just a bunch of dumbasses playing cops and robbers, with real guns.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

I take an interest in self defense and fighting strategies, and am always interested in real-time testing. Here, it falls with something I've always advocated: don't rush a group of armed nuts when unarmed. There is a good time to run like hell to the sides, and this was one. We are not bulletproof.

This was the second time they had tried to stop him. According to the police report, a previous attempt to block him in resulted in him turning back and running off. Fighting wasn't his first resort here.

I think the clip of the man taking aim with the shotgun changes things. Arbery doesn't veer into the shoulder until the man trains the gun on him. Coming around the other side he finds the armed man has re-positioned to head him off and he makes a snap decision.

The last moments of the chase were very chaotic. I wouldn't blame Arbery for having poor presence of mind at the moment.

 

[Thermal]

We aren't allowed to criticize the two white people's shotgun handling technique (which, apropos of nothing, was garbage. Dude didn't even had it set in his shoulder good. My instructor in Afghanistan would have bit my head off for handling a long arm that way) only the black guy's defense strategy.

They should, and have, been roundly criticized for having guns out AT ALL. Georgia law regarding citizens arrest has been criticized, as well.

Oh, and Re: earlier, your 100% consistent thing; I remembered one more. Drejka in Florida. He MURDERED that black man, no questions or qualifiers, and should rot in prison. Glad he is there.

And agreed, gun handling for all the well armed killers was a joke. Waving guns around is different from being an efficient killer. And again, it took a lot of cojones for Arbery to rush them.

 

[CORed]

See, you could not be more mistaken. This story has everything to do with trespassing.

Arbery's trespassing on the day of, and trespassing previously on video, led to two individuals independently identifying him as the trespasser previously caught on video. If he would have chose not to trespass, he could have continued his routine jog through the neighborhood like he had been doing for years, according to his mother and neighbors, but he didn't. His trespassing precipitated a confrontation and now he's dead because of it.

I would agree that he shouldn't have been tresspassing (assuming that the whole tresspassing story wasn't made up by the killers after the fact).

But I will also say that the reason this became a murder, is that some redneck morons decided to respond to his trespassing by waving guns around.

Racist? Maybe, maybe not. Assault with a deadly weapon and murder? Definitely.

 

[Thermal]

This was the second time they had tried to stop him. According to the police report, a previous attempt to block him in resulted in him turning back and running off. Fighting wasn't his first resort here.

I think the clip of the man taking aim with the shotgun changes things. Arbery doesn't veer into the shoulder until the man trains the gun on him. Coming around the other side he finds the armed man has re-positioned to head him off and he makes a snap decision.

The last moments of the chase were very chaotic. I wouldn't blame Arbery for having poor presence of mind at the moment.

Hard for me to picture guys standing in the road with guns (I live in a no carry state). Just seeing a firearm in public would likely have me diving for cover, not continuing to run and waiting to see if he put me in his sights.

But with that 20/20 hindsight, 2 or three weapons in sight and me empty handed...i dunno. Can't see doing anything but running hard and fast to the sides as a best possible chance.

The police report was filled out via testimony of the killers. Not sure how objectively we should take it. They could have been self serving in presenting the run up. IIRC, they claimed two shots were fired during the struggle, but we know it was three.

Also, still curious why the video recording buddy posted the footage. Conscience got the better of him after the fact? Or bragging?

 

[CORed]

"Oh noes, here's a picture of him with his middle fingers raised! Thus, he must have been a violent thug that attacked these two innocent white guys, please ignore the recording of him trying to escape! He must have run away, and then ran back and punched them in the face from behind!"

Hey, he probably smoked weed too.