BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) – People questioned during jury selection about the killing of Ahmaud Arbery have said he was “racially profiled” by the white men who chased and shot him, singled out “due to his color” and targeted for being “a Black person who was thought to have been stealing things.”
The statements came in response to blunt questions about race from prosecutors and defense attorneys who are trying to seat an impartial jury for the trial over Arbery’s death in the coastal Georgia city of Brunswick. The inquiries elicited some pointed responses.
“The whole case is about racism,” one woman, identified only as potential juror No. 199, said Thursday in the courtroom. She said the three men charged with murder “hunted him down and killed him like an animal.”
Another prospective juror, No. 72, told the attorneys: “If it was a white guy running through the neighborhood, I don’t think he would have been targeted as a suspect.”
The comments could signal trouble for defense attorneys, who have often argued for the dismissal of potential jurors who see Arbery as a victim of racial prejudice. Several of them, including No. 199 and No. 72, have been deemed qualified by Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley to remain in the pool from which a final jury will be chosen.