Police bodycam footage showed officers in Georgia trying tase slain jogger Ahmaud Arbery while his hands were up and he was unarmed in 2017.
Lawyers for Arbery’s family said the video suggests that the 25-year-old underwent harassment from Glynn County authorities.
Three years before Arbery, 25, would be suddenly shot dead by two white men while jogging in February, he had a tense encounter with police officers in Glynn County, Georgia.
In November 2017, Officer Micheal Kanago reportedly approached Arbery after he suspected him of using marijuana and questioned why he was sitting alone in his car.
Footage obtained by The Guardian shows Kanago questioning Arbery, who explained that he was relaxing inside his vehicle and rapping over instrumental beats.
Slain jogger Ahmaud Arbery (pictured) was tased by Glynn County Officer David Haney during an interaction in 2017
Arbery adds that it’s his day off from working at Blue Beacon Truck Wash.
‘You want to know why I’m f****** with you?’ Kanago asks, before instructing Arbey to remove his hands from his pocket.
Kanago later claimed to have felt threatened by Arbery and later wrote that ‘veins were popping from [Arbery’s] chest, which made me feel that he was becoming enraged and may turn physically violent towards me.’
At the time, Kanago requested help from an additional officer.
‘You’re bothering me for nothing,’ Arbery says to Kanago in bodycam footage.
Officer David Haney (right) tased Arbery (left) in November 2017, as revealed by police bodycam footage
Officers suspected Arbery (pictured) if using marijuana and other criminal activity while he relaxed inside in vehicle on his day off
Arbery continues to question the officer, who soon admits that the area is well known for drug use and criminal activity.
‘Criminal activity? I’m in a f****** park. I work,’ Arbery says.
David Haney, the second officer at the scene, arrives minutes later and yells at Arbery to remove his hands from his pockets, which he did.
That’s when Haney tries to Taser Arbery to no affect.
‘I get one day off a week…I’m up early in the morning trying to chill,’ Arbery told the officers.
‘I’m just so aggravated because I work hard, six days a week.’
Arbery is eventually released by the officers, but barred from driving his car because his license is expired.
Arbery (pictured) told Officer Kanago that he was rapping inside his car as a way to relax on his day off
Officers eventually let Arbey go, but he was not allowed to drive his car because of a suspended license.
Lawyers with Arbery’s family described the incident as ‘a situation where Ahmaud was harassed by Glynn county police officers.’
They told The Guardian that there was ‘no justifiable reason’ for Arbey to be confronted with a Taser.
Additonally, they suggested that the video is proof that Glynn County police have unfairly targeted Arbery in the past.
‘This appears to be just a glimpse into the kind of scrutiny Ahmaud Arbery faced not only by this police department, but ultimately regular citizens like the McMichaels and their posse, pretending to be police officers,’ a statement read.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that Arbery was placed on probation in 2013 for having a gun while at a high school basket ball game.
He was later charged with shoplifting and violating his probation in 2018. Arbery’s family lawyer’s said those charges are unrelated to his death.
In February, Arbery was killed by Travis McMichael, 34, and his 64-year-old father, Greg McMichael.
Gregory McMichael, 64, and Travis McMichael, 34, have been jailed on murder charges since May 7
Gregory and Travis have been jailed on murder charges since May 7.
The elder McMichael told police he suspected Arbery was responsible for recent break-ins in the neighborhood.
He also said Arbery attacked his son before he was shot.
Arbery’s mother has said she believes her son was merely out jogging
Arbery’s mother has said she believes her son was merely out jogging.
Defense lawyers for Gregory McMichael said last Friday that they have examined evidence that ‘tells a very different story’ about Arbery and the two men charged with killing him. Attorney Laura Hogue told reporters: ‘There is more than one video of the incident.’
She did not give any specifics. A roughly 40-second cellphone video of the shooting was leaked online last week, a day before the McMichaels were charged the felony murder and aggravated assault.
The video fueled a national outcry not just over the killing but also that more than two months passed before arrests were made.
Attorney Franklin Hogue, hired to defend Gregory McMichael along with his law partner wife, said more details would be revealed at a preliminary court hearing that he plans to request soon.
‘The truth will reveal this is not just another act of violent racism,’ Franklin Hogue told a news conference outside the couple’s Macon office. ‘Greg McMichael did not commit murder. Greg McMichael is not a party to the crime of murder.
Video footage which showed Gregory and Travis embroiled in a scuffle with Arbery before they fatally shot him sparked national outrage after it was published on social media earlier this month
Attorneys for Arbery’s parents have said security camera video from the same home construction site Feb. 23 shows Arbery on the property right before the shooting. They also say the footage shows Arbery committing no crimes.
‘There were frequently people on the construction site both day and night,’ attorneys for Arbery’s parents said in a statement Friday. ‘Ahmaud Arbery seems to be the only one who was presumed to be a criminal and ultimately the only one murdered based on that assumption.’
Travis called 911 to report a possible trespasser on English’s property the night of Feb. 11, less than two weeks before Arbery was shot. He described a ‘black male, red shirt and white shorts.’
‘When I turned around and saw him and backed up, he reached into his pocket and ran into the house,’ Travis told the 911 operator.
‘So I don´t know if he´s armed or not. But he looked like, he was acting like he was.’
Ahmaud Arbery ‘was chased for FOUR MINUTES’ by father and son before he was shot dead in a Georgia neighborhood, family lawyer says
The lawyer for Ahmaud Arbery’s family said the 25-year-old was chased for four minutes before being gunned down by a white father and son in February.
According to attorney S. Lee Merritt, the initial video that was leaked by Brunswick attorney Alan Tucker and revealed Arbery’s last moments on February 23 is much longer.
Merritt confirmed to Fox News on Monday that the new video shows William Bryan, who recorded the shooting, Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son Travis McMichael, 34, chasing Arbery for four minutes while he was jogging in the Satilla Shores neighborhood near Brunswick, Georgia.
No other information has been released regarding the extended video, but Arbery’s family is expected to release a statement today.
According to attorney, S. Lee Merritt (left), who is representing the Arbery family, the initial video that was leaked by Brunswick attorney Alan Tucker and revealed Ahmaud Arbery’s last moments on February 23,shows the McMichaels chasing Arbery for four minutes
Shocking cellphone video captured the moment Gregory and Travis McMichael confronted Arbery in the street. In the footage Travis is seen engaging in a physical fight with Arbery before shooting him with a shotgun
This map shows the February 23 encounter between Arbery and the McMichaels
Arbery was killed February 23 after the father and son trailed him in their white pick-up truck after he jogged past their yard.
The elder McMichael told police he suspected Arbery was responsible for recent break-ins in the neighborhood.
But local police have said there have been no break-ins in the area for the last couple of months.
The attorney of the owner of the house under construction said she thinks Arbery was getting water. A man in similar clothes appeared in videos from the home at least twice, lawyer J. Elizabeth Graddy said.
The homeowner, Larry English, lives hours away and set up motion-activated security cameras that send him a text when they start filming.
English called the Glynn County Police after one notification on December 17.
No one was arrested, but a detective sent English a text message three days later giving him Gregory McMichael’s phone number and identifying him as a retired law enforcement officer, adding ‘he said please call him day or night when you get action on your camera,’ according to the December 20 text shared by Graddy.
English never read the text until Graddy’s firm started reviewing his phone days ago.
‘He never called Gregory McMichael. He never took him up on that offer,’ Graddy said.
The video fueled a national outcry not just over the killing but also that more than two months passed before arrests were made.
Hundreds of people came to the Glynn County courthouse demanding accountability on Saturday.
Arbery’s family ended the rally thanking the crowd for their support and saying ‘we are all running for Ahmaud’.
Officers with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation are seen arresting both McMichaels on May 7
The crowd then marched away from the courthouse, taking a knee in silence and blocking traffic for more than 60 seconds to symbolize the days it took for arrests in the case.
Then they chanted: ‘When black lives are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back.’
The McMichaels have been jailed on murder charges since May 7.
Merritt took to Twitter on Saturday to share that local police had given a property owner the retired officer’s number in December to report when people were on his property.
‘Police told the homeowner where #AhmaudArbery was last seen to contact Greg McMichael if his cameras caught someone on his property,’ he said in the Saturday tweet.
Protesters gather outside the Glynn County Courthouse during a rally to protest Arbery’s killing on Saturday
The crowd marched away from the courthouse, taking a knee in silence and blocking traffic for more than 60 seconds to symbolize the days it took for arrests in the case
‘McMichael in turn gathered a posse & began hunting for Ahmaud, or someone who fit his description, catching up with him on 2/23/20 – killing him.’
Attorney Franklin Hogue, hired to defend Gregory McMichael along with his law partner wife, said more details would be revealed at a preliminary court hearing that he plans to request soon.
‘The truth will reveal this is not just another act of violent racism,’ Franklin Hogue told a news conference outside the couple’s Macon office.
‘Greg McMichael did not commit murder. Greg McMichael is not a party to the crime of murder.’
L. Chris Stewart, an attorney also representing Arbery’s family, derided the older McMichael for having possession of the video.
‘He had that tape by himself. He delivered it. We have questions about the length of it,’ the lawyer said.
He later added: ‘I have no doubt that Mr. McMichael and his son believe what he did was OK. It just wasn’t. Travis never should have gotten that shotgun. That is significant.’