The father and son duo who were jailed for the February shooting of Ahmaud Arbery were scheduled in court for a bond hearing Thursday.
Gregory and Travis McMichael appeared before Superior Judge Timothy Walmsley in a hearing that lasted so long that it went into recess.
In addition to requesting bond, the McMichael pair asked for their charges to get tossed including malice murder. They allege that they’re involved in a legally flawed indictment.
The McMichaels brought character witnesses to testify that they aren’t racist. Although they basically hunted an unarmed Arbery and gunned him down in cold blood.
Travis’ friend, Zachary Langford, took the stand and was questioned about a text exchange two months before the shooting. Travis texted Langford about “shooting a crackhead coon with gold teeth with a Hi-Point .45,” according to the state.
Langford didn’t recall the conversation, but after reviewing the transcript he quipped, “He was referring to a raccoon, I believe.”
“A raccoon with gold teeth and a Hi-Point .45?” the prosecutor asked, referring to the model of pistol. “He was being facetious,” Langford replied.
But prosecutors hit back with even more evidence from social media to corroborate the claims that the McMichaels are bigots.
Langford posted a picture on Facebook and Travis commented “Sayonara, ch**k f***s,” using an offensive slur for Asians.
After the shooting, Gregory told police that he and his son armed themselves and pursued Arbery because they allegedly thought he was a burglar.
Ahmaud Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, made an emotional victim impact statement and says the McMichaels are “as dangerous today as they were on February 23″ and are ‘proud of what they have done.”
“They tried to explain that they believed my son was a trespasser… that he was someone engaged in a criminal enterprise,” she said.
She argued that the defendants believe “their defense of grabbing their guns, chasing, boxing my son in with their vehicles, pursuing him and eventually shooting him to death, ripping his body into pieces’ was ‘the right thing to do’ and she believes ‘if given the opportunity both men would do the same again.”
Cooper-Jones spoke about the emotional distress she faced as authorities called her finding “pieces of her son in the street” following his death. “They discovered what they believed to be one of Ahmaud’s bone fragments near to where he was murdered at Satilla Shores. They wanted to know what we wanted doing with those pieces of my son that they were still discovering in the street.”
Langford’s wife, Ashley Langford, testified that Travis McMichael expressed remorse about shooting Arbery. “He told me he wished it never happened like that,’ she said. ‘He prayed for Ahmaud’s mother and his family daily.”
But Wanda highly doubts they feel any remorse because she lives right in their community and no one attempted to contact her. “I live right there in the community,” she said. “Nobody reached out to say, ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’ I don’t think they are remorseful at all.”
The grieving mother echoed her plea to keep the murderous duo jailed until their trial because “those guys are dangerous.”
Where’s the lie? #JusticeforAhmaud
