SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) – Outrage is spreading over a shooting of a black man that led to murder charges more than two months later against a white father and son, but “all that matters is what the facts tell us,” the director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said Friday.
And once the GBI was brought into the case, “we came up fairly quickly with the solid belief that there’s sufficient cause to charge them with felony murder and aggravated assault,” GBI director Vic Reynolds said at a news conference.
The investigation continues now that Gregory and Travis McMichael have been booked into the Glynn County Jail in the Feb. 23 shooting of Ahmaud Arbery. Reynolds said “every stone will be uncovered.”
But in response to a question about any racial intent, Reynolds said “there is no hate crime in Georgia. There isn’t. It is one of four or five states that doesn’t have one.”
The McMichaels told police they pursued Arbery, with another person recording them on video, after spotting him running in their neighborhood. The father and son said they thought he matched the appearance of a burglary suspect who had been recorded on a surveillance camera.