The three men convicted of killing Ahmaud Arbery have been sentenced.
Travis McMichael, 35, was sentenced to life without the possible of parole. He delivered the deadly shot and was convicted on all nine charges: malice murder, four counts of felony murder, aggravated assault with a shotgun, aggravated assault with a pickup truck, false imprisonment and criminal intent to commit a felony.
McMichael’s father, Gregory McMichael, 65, was sentenced to life without the possible of parole. The former Georgia police officer was found not guilty of malice murder but was convicted on the remaining charges, including the felony murder counts.
The McMichaels’ neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, 53, was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole. He was found guilty of three of the felony murder counts as well as charges of aggravated assault with his pickup truck, false imprisonment and criminal intent to commit a felony.
A Georgia jury in November, after deliberating for about 11 hours, convicted the three white men of chasing and fatally shooting Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man who was out on a Sunday jog in February 2020.
Each faced a maximum sentence of life in prison.
All three men had pleaded not guilty to the nine-count state indictment.
The three men also have been indicted on federal hate crime charges, and all have pleaded not guilty. Jury selection for that trial is set to begin Feb. 7.
Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who is representing Arbery’s family, spoke in a press conference before the sentencing, calling the guilty verdict “an awakening in America.”
“What we pray for is that this is a new, precedent in America that harkens back to the words written in 1776 when we say we hold these truths, that all men are created equally,” Crump said. “We pray that we see that same spirit in a sentence of these killers, this lynch mob. We want to make sure that they don’t get a slap on the wrist.”
