"I'm running with Maud. " The affair of the young black jogger, Ahmaud Arbery, 25, killed on February 23 in Brunswick, in the state of Georgia, does not stop causing excitement in the United States, a country regularly shaken by racial violence . On social networks, Internet users multiply messages under photos in sportswear with the hashtag #IRunWithMaud (("I'm running with Maud"), the young man’s nickname.
Demonstrations also took place in Brunswick, a city in the south of the country with a long segregationist past. Hundreds on Friday, wearing masks due to the pandemic, went to city court to demand justice. "Is it illegal to be black and jog? ", could be read on one of the signs waved in the crowd.
Two white men, Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son Travis, 34, were detained Thursday evening. At a press conference on Friday, Vic Reynolds, the police chief of Georgia, whose services were seized Tuesday evening after the broadcast of a video of the crime, estimated that the elements to charge the two suspects were "More than enough". Within 36 hours, his teams made the arrests, he said: " That says everything. "
But the investigation is not over and further arrests are possible, he added. The man who filmed the scene is of particular interest to investigators. But the investigations will focus on the murder only, said Reynolds, excluding investigating the reasons why local police and prosecutors did not act faster – it took seventy-four days to arrest the two suspects.
"This is a very disturbing situation"
According to press reports, Gregory McMichael, a former retired police officer, has long worked as an investigator for the local prosecutor's office. The first two prosecutors responsible for the case recused themselves, but the second took several weeks to do so.
It was the Tuesday broadcast of a video of the crime, which went viral, that relaunched the investigation. In this recording, Ahmaud Arbery runs along a road. As he bypasses a white pickup truck on which a man is standing, he is stopped by a second man who grabs it. We hear three shots.
The images provoked a shock wave and the mobilization of several personalities, including basketball star LeBron James or actress Zoë Kravitz. They are "Very disturbing", also tried US President Donald Trump in an interview on Fox on Friday. "It is a very disturbing situation. "
Police report Gregory McMichael claims he thought Ahmaud Arbery was an active burglar in the neighborhood "Strutting around" in front of his house. He says that he went after him with his son and some weapons and that the confrontation went wrong. According to the young man’s family, Ahmaud Arbery was just jogging and was the victim of a racist crime.
Georgia is one of five states that do not provide aggravating circumstances for racial hatred, and several voices, including American football stars, have asked federal justice to intervene.
