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GameChanger [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
00:01:44
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always as a man who truly understands The Perils of rock and roll
00:01:51
decadence he is the captain I know it's only rock and roll but I like it it's good to be seen and it's good to see you
00:01:59
thanks for listening and thanks for telling my [Music] friend this week we are very happy to be
00:02:10
featuring ghost blimp which is not only a great mystery but also a great beer ghost blimp is a double New England IPA
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ABV 9% so drink it at home in your garage and speaking of which garage grade five out of five bottle caps woo a
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big cheers and thank you goes out to the the great Brewers of this fine beer which is tactical Brewing Company and a
00:02:34
big cheers and thank you goes out to new friend of the show Drew down in one of my favorite cities Atlanta Georgia and a
00:02:42
big shout out to Shannon and Boston next up we have Danica and Jeremiah in scholsberg Wisconsin and a big shout out
00:02:50
to Riley in Colorado Springs Colorado the Springs of Colorado next up we have Haley from Henderson Nevada and last but
00:03:00
certainly not least we have a big cheers and thank you to our friend Margie and Florence Kentucky everyone that we just
00:03:07
mentioned well they went to True Crim garage.com and they donated to this week's beer fund and for that we are
00:03:13
forever thankful and I was sent over the weekend a picture of a couple that got we like the cut of your jib
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tattoos so big mistake thanks thanks for making mistakes on your body so a big shout out to
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Sabrina as well cheers for everything true crme garage check out trr garage.com make sure you sign up on the
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mailing list we're going to have a mailing list garage sale again real soon so make sure you go to trme garage.com
00:03:45
to sign up and that's enough of the business all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's
00:03:51
talk some true crime [Music] run [Music] [Music] run BL Bruns Communications operator
00:04:28
Smith hey I live out breaking out here there's a guy in the house right now it's a house under
00:04:37
construction okay do you know do you have your address or the other that House's address uh right at uh 219 or
00:04:46
220 to f a drive and you said someone's breaking into it right now no it's it's all open it's under construction and
00:04:55
he's running right now there he goes right now okay what is he doing he's running down the
00:05:02
street back okay that's fine I'll get them out there I just need to know what he was doing
00:05:09
wrong was he just on the premises and not supposed to be and he's been caught on the camera a
00:05:15
bunch before at night it's kind of an ongoing thing out here the man is building the house got
00:05:22
heart issues out there he's not finish it okay that's fine and you said it was a male and a black
00:05:28
T-shirt a white T-shirt black guy white T-shirt and he's he's done back R Done run back into the
00:05:36
neighborhood 911 was he address your emergency uh I'm not here it's Shores there a black mail running down the
00:05:45
street where where where at Satilla Shores I don't know what s world stop stop it sir hello sir
00:05:59
[Applause] sir where you at hello hello [Music] run February 23rd 2020 should have been
00:06:23
just another day this was roughly about 2 weeks or so before everything started shutting down the covid-19 virus brought
00:06:32
the United States and so many other countries to a dead stop our story takes place in the Southeastern portion of
00:06:40
Georgia this part of the country stays warmer than other states so on a Sunday with some sunshine and temperatures
00:06:48
around the mid-60s this would be a great day for a nice relaxing jog Ahmed Arbury
00:06:55
was a passionate young man he loved many things and he enjoyed running and being
00:07:00
outdoors on his day off which was this Sunday it was typical for Ahad to work six days a week so a lot of the time
00:07:10
Sunday was his only day off and when it came to his day off he took every advantage to enjoy the day to the
00:07:18
fullest often he would get up early so he would have the full day to clear his mind before returning to work on Monday
00:07:26
many folks his age will sleep in later on the weekends but not Ahmad Ahmad was 25 years old and living with his mother
00:07:34
outside of the small city of Brunswick Georgia Ahad played Sports in high school and he was dedicated to staying
00:07:42
in good shape he could be seen jogging around his neighborhood regularly I want to quickly point out that this is
00:07:51
February 23rd of 20120 so some of you may be quite familiar with this case as the last few weeks the case has been in
00:08:00
the headlines but some of you may be unaware of this case and really from a news standpoint this case was buried
00:08:09
really like sitting there dormant until Richard faucet got a hold of the story now Faucet Works for the times and is in
00:08:19
my humble opinion humble garage opinion that is a very good writer and Incredibly fair and that's really what
00:08:27
is needed for this story some that is incredibly fair this story really broke and changed dramatically because of him
00:08:36
faucet covers the south for the times and this makes sense as he is in Atlanta and I think it was
00:08:45
early May that this case the the news story and other portions that we will get into were just like everything else
00:08:54
in our world they were affected by the covid-19 virus so you know news was affected as well and it really needed
00:09:02
the news to get a hold of this story to change what was going on inside of this case now faucet drove down to Brunswick
00:09:11
to interview some people truly canvasing the neighborhood you know asking people
00:09:17
what they saw or what they may have heard what they think they know about what went down Brunswick is about 4 and
00:09:24
1/ half hour drive from Atlanta now because of Richard faet and the New York Times because they did such a great job
00:09:31
on this case and because I'm a longtime subscriber to the paper I have quick ready access to this material so I
00:09:39
relied heavily almost exclusively at times on the New York Times coverage of ahmad's case I think everyone will agree
00:09:48
this that this has some parts that are quite complicated and others that are really just so simple that it will
00:09:56
outrage you mhm okay so let's get get into it here captain again we're talking about February 23rd it should have just
00:10:04
been another ordinary day but it wasn't and here's why Ahmad was going jogging that day let's discuss where he was
00:10:13
jogging this was the Satilla Shores subdivision in Coastal Georgia according to Richard faet and Rick Raj's May 18th
00:10:23
Times article they describ the subdivision as such several of the homes are low slung branches of 20th century
00:10:31
vintage more cozy than fancy and shaded by dramatic Moss draped Oaks some backyards are bordered by the little
00:10:40
Satilla River which is like a lazy on-ramp to a stunning jigsaw puzzle of waterways and wetlands stretching out to
00:10:48
the Atlantic Ocean personally this area of our great country I find to be so incredibly beautiful now the times goes
00:10:57
on to say that by mid February so this is right around the same time as our story kicks off concerns in this
00:11:05
neighborhood they were really ramping up because there had been property crimes that were mounting at this time cars had
00:11:12
been broken into guns had been stolen one house that was under construction on Satilla Drive which is the
00:11:19
neighborhood's like Main Street had been the subject of at least three emergency
00:11:25
calls about potential trespassing on febru AR 23rd there would be two more trespassing
00:11:32
calls at the partially built house the final call began with the sound of Screams and shotgun blast now sometime
00:11:41
before 100 p.m. Ahmad went out for a jog he was jogging in the Satilla Shores subdivision a man standing in his front
00:11:53
yard calls 911 he says that there is someone trespassing in the partially built home home the man he
00:12:01
says that he sees looked like a man that was suspected in several break-ins in the area I want to kind of go into
00:12:11
something here a bit Captain before we move on because I've seen I've read and heard different narratives as we all
00:12:21
have in this case and it's troubling because you don't know which way to go you don't
00:12:28
know which to believe so you have to look at it all through your own lens and do your own little detective work at
00:12:38
home and try to figure out what truly happened here but one thing I want to clear up is there are several articles
00:12:45
and several people that have said that Ahmad is the same man that was seen trespassing in this home
00:12:54
before to be clear and perfectly Fair we don't know that with 100% certainty he looks similar yeah there's
00:13:05
there's video of this um again we we have nobody in his family stating for 100% certainty that it is him they're
00:13:16
going to State it's him 100% in other videos MH but some of the videos that I believe most of the ones that I've seen
00:13:24
were at night um the family has not confirmed that they believe that is him right so I want to be clear that here in
00:13:32
the garage no one is saying that Ahmad was the man who was committing these break-ins and regardless of what is said
00:13:39
on the 911 call nobody knows for certain that Ahmad is that same person that was
00:13:44
seen before right and I haven't seen videos of quote unquote break-ins the video that's been going around lately is
00:13:52
of the house in question just earlier in the year and unfortunately what happened
00:13:59
here and it happens a lot Ahmad is a young black male and likely the color of his skin is the thing that these people
00:14:08
calling into 911 are citing as him being the same guy or matching the description
00:14:15
of so now we have to talk about a couple of other people because this is where it gets very
00:14:22
complicated very quickly we have Gregory McMichael Gregory is a former Glenn County police officer and a former
00:14:31
investigator with the Local District Attorney's office he retired in May of 2019 he is one of the people that sees a
00:14:40
mod running Gregory decides really with no knowledge or insight into this whole mess at all in my opinion that Ahmad is
00:14:50
a suspect and Gregory is going to pursue this young man so he and his son this is
00:14:57
Travis McMichael grabbed a 357 Magnum handgun for anyone that does not know this is a rather large handgun this
00:15:06
often referred to like a like a hand Cannon and they grab a shotgun and they jump in the pickup truck and off they go
00:15:14
chasing after young Ahmad there was a third man in another vehicle involved in this as well and we will get into him in
00:15:22
a bit but the two McMichaels fully loaded and in their pickup try unsuccess y to cut Ahmad off as he is jogging down
00:15:31
the street eventually Gregory McMichaels yells at Ahmad stop stop we want to talk
00:15:37
to you the two then pull up next to Ahad and the younger McMichael Travis he's outside of the vehicle he's in very
00:15:48
close proximity to Ahmad some people say that Ahmad is charging at him uh it does
00:15:54
appear that he he's definitely moving toward him I think to call it charging is painting a picture that is a very again
00:16:03
it's not clear exactly what anyone's intent was during this whole mess well it seems
00:16:10
like there was two times that they caught up with the mod the first time it seems like he's still running away the
00:16:18
second time it seems like he has a path that maybe he could become free but he decides and turns into a confrontation
00:16:27
mhm yeah at some point we have a mod who who knows I mean again intent what are people thinking what's going through
00:16:37
their minds at the time we don't know we can't say that but you have to wonder is
00:16:41
he frightened for his life at this time he attempts to grab the shotgun from Travis well we could kind of assume that
00:16:50
we have two individuals both have guns we don't know if mod knows that they have guns but I guarantee you he can see
00:16:58
the shotgun mhm uh and and these two individuals are chasing after you that'd be some scary stuff and according to the
00:17:07
reports and this is according to Gregory McMichaels he says the two are fighting
00:17:13
over the shotgun when Travis fires a shot and then very quickly there's a second Shot Heard on the 911 call and
00:17:21
very very sadly Ahmad is killed he was killed right there on the scene I've seen it reported multiple ways saying
00:17:30
that there was two shots three shots possibly do you have like confirmation yeah we can get into uh the quick of the
00:17:40
autopsy if if you want so cuz what I heard was two shots to the chest one shot that uh grazed his right wrist yeah
00:17:49
so like any of like a lot of cases that we cover you have the public is not privy
00:17:56
to every bit of of information that law enforcement will have on this situation and then the news as said be a
00:18:07
a lot of this is because of covid-19 and here here somebody's going to go there's
00:18:11
just another person blaming everything on covid-19 but no really what I think happened here Captain is a is a sad
00:18:18
situation where this this shooting needed to be looked at by a different agency by different people and it needed
00:18:27
to be in investigated and it didn't really happen that way until the public outcry came to say hey we think
00:18:35
something else may have happened here and really it took the news to be telling this story to get people to
00:18:43
speak up and get this thing moving in maybe a better Direction and so because of covid-19 it was slow to get to the
00:18:53
news the times didn't cover it until you know a month or so after the shutdown and like every other case we've
00:19:02
seen when no news is coming out or it's coming out in drips and drabs the the public kind of makes up what they think
00:19:11
is going on they fill in the blanks well right but all countries in lockdown it's
00:19:15
hard to get together and protest right and so what we have here is the the quick of the autopsy report which was
00:19:23
released by gbi Georgia Bureau of Investigation ruled a mod death a homicide and that it was caused by three
00:19:31
gunshot wounds he sustained during a struggle for the shotgun that fired those shots so three gunshot wounds all
00:19:40
came from the shotgun one gunshot wound was in the upper left chest one in the lower middle chest and one gunshot
00:19:49
caused a deep gaping graze wound to the right wrist there were no signs of alcohol or drugs in ahad's system right
00:20:00
and so just to be clear gbi is stating that this is a homicide correct so we have Ahmad who was killed and then we
00:20:08
have the McMichaels say that they were attempting to make a citizen's arrest of Ahmad who they believe to be a burglary
00:20:16
suspect when Ahmad fought them attempting to gain control of the shotgun Travis McMichael had to use
00:20:23
deadly force to protect himself what happens next is this case is sent to district attorney George E Barnhill he's
00:20:32
the da in Way Cross Georgia Barnhill writes a letter to the Glenn County police department in said letter
00:20:40
Barnhill argues that there is insufficient probable cause to arrest either Travis McMichael or Gregory
00:20:48
McMichael he says that the McMichaels were legally carrying firearms so Georgia is an open carry
00:20:55
state and most people would be surprised to to find out that there are a lot of states that are open carry Ohio being
00:21:02
one of them and these are not new laws mhm these are laws that date back from way way back when I didn't think there
00:21:11
would be new laws these this sounds like the Wild Wild West yeah there you go um
00:21:17
and he goes on to say Barnhill goes on to say that they were pursuing what he says what Barnhill says is a burglary
00:21:25
suspect and if Ahmad Arbury attacks Travis then Travis is allowed to use deadly force to protect himself under
00:21:33
Georgia law so if everyone is right well then this should be the end of the story
00:21:39
a tragic end but the end it is not as it appears because there's a possibility that we are dealing with the situation
00:21:46
where everything is not right where maybe some people did some very wrong things is this another tragic and
00:21:54
disgusting example of racial profiling where the McMichaels actually were the bad guys and then we have to ask
00:22:02
ourselves though too what was Ahmad Arbury doing that day was he out for a Sunday jog or was he looking to
00:22:10
burglarize a home in that neighborhood did district attorney George Barnhill actually take a good thorough and most
00:22:17
importantly fair look at what actually happened on Satilla drive on that Sunday afternoon in February or did Barnhill
00:22:26
turn a blind eye to a couple of white guys shooting a black man under the guise of protecting themselves in their
00:22:33
neighborhood so again we have to take a look at it for ourselves right captain and we'll dive deeper right after this
00:22:39
quick beer [Applause] [Music] break this show is sponsored by better help do you look forward to the holidays
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[Music] all right tally homie mes tally talo do does anybody know what that means nobody
00:25:18
knows anything of what I'm saying on this show I don't even know what I'm saying you're like one of those dolls
00:25:26
with the string you just pull the string and and it just it says stuff comes out
00:25:31
all right well let's get serious here Captain um because we have I've been serious we have a very difficult case to
00:25:38
discuss this week there was a public release of the Glen County Police Department's incident report for what
00:25:45
the report says the nature of the incident is a homicide at 219 satila Drive in Satilla Shores Brunswick
00:25:54
Georgia Glen County PD sent 13 off officers and 13 police vehicles to the scene the incident occurred around 1:08
00:26:04
p.m. it was reported at that same time and police were very quickly at the scene on location and at the scene until
00:26:13
just after 11:15 p.m. so they were there for quite some time over 10 hours page two cites trespassing and labels a mod
00:26:23
as the victim of homicide Travis mcel is is listed as a suspect Gregory McMichael
00:26:31
is listed as a witness and we have five other Witnesses cited in their names are
00:26:36
given but I don't feel the need to name all of them here right unless you know if we get into the story later and find
00:26:44
it to be necessary we'll name them as as we see fit there is another individual named and listed as a victim as
00:26:53
well so this person would be the owner of the property that's in question when we when we say that Ahmad was
00:27:02
trespassing right and again I don't know that we need to give his name as well I
00:27:09
will say to the garage Army out there you can find these names if you so desire this is all public information
00:27:16
that we will be reporting today and tomorrow but in my opinion this is a very sensitive hot button situation so
00:27:23
we want to try to play fair and not name people that might come under Fire by way of social media truly I believe
00:27:31
this is a very unfair situation I want to make sure that the garage can be part of a solution and not part of the
00:27:37
problem I'm just going to read pages three and four from the police incident report on Sunday February 23rd 2020 I
00:27:47
responded to the intersection of Satilla drive and Holmes Drive in reference to shots fired while in route I was advised
00:27:55
that there were shots fired in a male on the ground bleeding out a short time later I was advised the male on the
00:28:03
ground was deceased upon my arrival I observed officer minshu setting up a perimeter I began speaking with Gregory
00:28:12
McMichael who was a witness to the incident McMichael stated there have been several break-ins in the
00:28:19
neighborhood and further the suspect was caught on surveillance video McMichael stated he was in his front yard and saw
00:28:26
the suspect from the break-ins hauling ass that's his words down Satilla drive toward Buford Drive McMichael stated he
00:28:35
then ran inside his house and called to Travis McMichael and said Travis the guy
00:28:41
is running down the street let's go McMichael stated he went to his bedroom and grabbed his 357 Magnum and Travis
00:28:49
grabbed his shotgun because they didn't know if the male was armed or not McMichael stated the other night they
00:28:57
saw the same male and he stuck his hand down his pants which led them to believe
00:29:02
the male was armed McMichael stated he and Travis got in the truck and drove down satila drive toward Buford Drive
00:29:10
McMichael stated when they arrived at the intersection of SAA drive and Holmes Drive they saw the unidentified male
00:29:17
running down Buford Drive McMichael then stated Travis drived down Buford and attempted to cut off the mail McMichael
00:29:27
stated the unidentified male turned around and began running back in the direction from
00:29:33
which he came and Rowdy who is the the third man and we'll get to him in a bit attempted to block him which was
00:29:43
unsuccessful McMichael stated he then jumped into the bed of the truck and he and Travis continued to homes the road
00:29:51
an attempt to intercept the unidentified male McMichael stated that they saw this
00:29:58
maale and shouted stop stop we want to talk to you McMichael stated they pulled up beside the male and shouted stop
00:30:06
again at which time Travis exited the truck with the shotgun McMichael stated the unidentified male began to violently
00:30:14
attack Travis and the two men then started fighting over the shotgun at which point Travis fired a shot and then
00:30:21
a second later there was a second shot McMichael stated the male fell face down on the pavement with his hand under his
00:30:31
body McMichael stated he rolled the man over to see if the male had a weapon goes on to say I observed blood on
00:30:38
McMichael's hands from Rolling the unidentified male over photographs were taken of McMichael's hands and were
00:30:45
uploaded to Spillman under property number 20 I don't need to give that that number there and it goes on to say my
00:30:54
Exxon body camera was on while I was on scene and the video has been uploaded to
00:31:00
spilman under property number and it's the same number Glenn County coroner was notified and coroner Christy Roser
00:31:08
arrived on scene coroner Roser pronounced time of death to be 146 Glen County CID was called to the scene and
00:31:18
upon their arrival the scene was turned over to them so pretty clear what was going on there but we have a situation
00:31:26
where obviously we need further investigation we need other eyes to take a look at this to determine if in fact
00:31:33
it was a lawful shooting that took place that day well and they're going to talk
00:31:39
to eyewitnesses that day and you would think we have a witness that was trailing them in a vehicle that has
00:31:47
video evidence you think the police officers would be able to look at that video evidence right away yes so this is
00:31:56
uh I believe I said Rowdy but it should be Rody I kind of he's not the piper you
00:32:02
know from wrestling rowdy rowdy Piper this is his real name is William Brian so Rody and William are the same person
00:32:10
just to be clear when we're going through this so we also have that letter we have a letter from the district
00:32:16
attorney George Barnhill and I'll read a portion of that but you had pointed out
00:32:21
something during our beer break it is interesting when you dive into this because there have been several district
00:32:27
attorneys involved in the case in some manner or form even if it's just recusing themselves and taking
00:32:34
themselves out of the case and you had mention it was supposed to go to somebody else but there's a conflict of
00:32:39
interest there and so it fell to George Barnhill rather quickly and here's what his letter States and this is what we
00:32:49
referenced earlier where we're talking about he's saying insufficient evidence to arrest either Travis McMichael or GRE
00:32:57
gory McMichael and I'll kind of skip around through this so we don't have to read the entire thing but he says my
00:33:03
office received the arbory autopsy report yesterday and have reviewed it we were waiting on this important
00:33:10
evidentiary article before finalizing our opinions however since we were initially requested to handle the case
00:33:18
the victim's mother has clearly expressed she wants myself and my office off the case she sees a conflict in that
00:33:26
my son works in the Brunswick District Attorney's office where Greg McMichael retired some time ago she believes that
00:33:34
there are kinships between the parties he says there are not and has made other unfounded allegations of bias as such I
00:33:44
believe it is better for my office to step out and am going to recuse myself and the assistance working for me from
00:33:52
handling the case I am contacting the Georgia attorney general office and seeking their assistance in finding
00:33:59
another district attorney in the state to handle the further evaluation for prosecution in this case that is to
00:34:08
determine whether there is sufficient evidence on which to make a grand jury presentation or not this is back to the
00:34:17
covid-19 stuff given the governor's current shelter and place order I cannot Venture a guess as to when they will
00:34:24
move on this request he goes on to say that he hopes that this is that it moves along as quickly as possible and then I
00:34:32
don't know if this is required in these types of of letters I've seen this several times before so maybe it is in
00:34:37
certain States but he's going on to to list his experience as being a district attorney and how many homicide cases
00:34:47
he's worked murder cases he's worked on over the years now what pertains to this
00:34:53
case he says it is my professional belief that the autopsy confirms what we already viewed as shown in the videotape
00:35:02
with the photographs and from the witness statements taken immediately at the scene the autopsy supports the
00:35:09
initial opinion we gave to you on February 24th this is when they said there was not sufficient evidence to
00:35:16
arrest the two McMichaels we do not see grounds for any arrest at this time either of of all three of the parties he
00:35:24
goes on to say that it appears Travis MCM Greg mcel and William Brian were following in Hot Pursuit a burglary
00:35:34
Suspect with solid firsthand probable cause in their neighborhood and asking slash telling him to stop it appears
00:35:43
their intent was to stop and hold this criminal suspect until law enforcement arrived under Georgia law this is
00:35:52
perfectly legal next he says it clearly appears Travis McMichael and Greg McMichael had Firearms being carried in
00:35:59
an open fashion the investigation shows neither of them to be convicted felons or under felony supervision they were in
00:36:08
a motor vehicle owned by Travis mcel under Georgia law this is legal open carry and fifth he notes the video made
00:36:19
by William Brian clearly shows the shooting in real time from said video it appears a mod was running along the
00:36:27
right side of the McMichael truck and then abruptly turns 90° to the left and attacks Travis mcel who was standing at
00:36:36
the front left corner of the truck a brief Skirmish ensues in which it appear that mod strikes McMichael and appears
00:36:47
to grab the shotgun and pull it from Travis McMichael the first shot is through ahmad's right hand Palm which is
00:36:57
consistent with him grabbing and pulling the shotgun at the Barrel tip the second
00:37:02
and third wounds are consistent with the struggle for the shotgun as depicted in
00:37:07
the video the angle of the second shot with the rear of the buttstock being pushed away and down from the fight are
00:37:18
also consistent with the upward angle of blood plume shown in the video and that
00:37:25
McMichael was a attempting to push the gun away from Ahmad while Ahmad was pulling it toward himself the third shot
00:37:34
too appears to be in a struggle over the gun the angle of the shots and the video
00:37:40
show this was from the beginning or almost immediately became a fight over the shotgun given the fact that Ahmad
00:37:48
initiated the fight at the point that Ahmad grabbed the shotgun under Georgia law McMichael was allowed to use deadly
00:37:58
force to protect himself just as importantly while we know McMichael had his finger on the trigger we do not know
00:38:06
who caused the firings Ahmad would only had to have pulled the shotgun approximately a 16th to an eighth of 1
00:38:16
in to fire the weapon himself and in the height of the altercation this is entirely possible a so he's saying he
00:38:25
committed suicide no he shot the shotgun himself he what what he's saying is that I don't know
00:38:33
why we're listening to what this guy has to say anyways he decided not to take on
00:38:36
the case and I think he wrote this letter as a as a rebuttal to the fact that am Mod's mother said hey he's
00:38:45
connected to this individual that we're trying to charge and we just don't want him on the case and so instead of just
00:38:53
going away quietly he's like well let me give you my opinions and I think that's
00:38:57
because he's trying to sit there and say well there is no conflict of interest and and I'm professional and this lady
00:39:03
doesn't know me so I I think making this statement and and having this statement
00:39:08
be released to the public is just a stab at her to get back at her for her comments I find it to be something
00:39:16
completely different he's he's being asked to give his an opinion he he was he was charged ask him well he was
00:39:24
charged with making a decision his office to make a decision on this very case he's giving what his opinions are
00:39:32
based off of the evidence as he sees it I want to be very clear there as he sees
00:39:37
it or his office sees it it's their opinion but you're stepping away from the case but no but what he's saying
00:39:44
Captain is that he has been asked to step away from the case by the victim's mother and he's in the process of making
00:39:51
that happen but because he's been required to give his office opinion he he giving it but he's giving a by the
00:39:58
way I'm asking to be removed from this case and I don't think my office should be involved in this case right and
00:40:06
that's why again don't need to hear your opinion yes you were asked to give your
00:40:10
opinion you were asked to be involved uh or you're assigned to be involved you're
00:40:17
asked to step away basically from the victim's mother again just step away and don't say anything or take on the
00:40:27
case right but I'm just I'm just pointing out that I don't think he would have been doing his job in the
00:40:34
moment uh to not offer but well the first one that stepped away she didn't offer her op opinion she didn't write a
00:40:42
letter right but there was a clear there was a clear reason to recuse oneself from that and that's when his office was
00:40:51
charged with looking at the evidence and coming up you don't think there's a clear indication
00:40:56
of a conflict of interests in this I'm not I don't want to judge whether there is or not what is obvious to me is it
00:41:03
wasn't clear to him in his office that there was it had to be pointed out by the victim's mother so that's where this
00:41:10
stuff falls into again where it kind of sits and it and waivers while we are figuring out
00:41:18
who is the who should be looking into this case and making a ruling well and and just a side note there a lot of
00:41:26
individuals that go man there should have been arrest and there should have been this done and and the these things
00:41:31
weren't done and that's and that's because this boy was black and clearly the the first prosecutor is not going to
00:41:40
take it on because we have clear indication of conflict of interests I think there's a clear indication of
00:41:47
conflict of interest on the second prosecutor as well but either or the victim's mother asked him to step down
00:41:55
so those are the reasons there were delays I mean on top of that the co virus so I don't think it was like this
00:42:04
nefarious thing that the hands of Justice weren't moving uh fast enough because people were trying to prevent
00:42:14
them from moving forward correct and I think that that's the biggest misconception here in this case where I
00:42:20
think there's a lot of people out there that don't know much about the facts of the case and are under the assumption
00:42:27
that somebody was trying to cover something up right what what I would suggest here is what we pointed out at
00:42:34
the top of the show this needs to be looked at through our own lens through our own eyes and make a determination
00:42:42
because here's the problem again somebody has to investigate this case and at this point in our timeline we've
00:42:49
had people that have been asked to do it charged with doing it and then they have
00:42:53
to recuse themselves so he I just finish up his letter real quick here he goes on
00:42:59
to say that ahmad's mental health records and prior convictions help explain his apparent
00:43:05
aggressive nature and his possible thought pattern to attack an armed man he ends by
00:43:12
saying it is our conclusion there is insufficient probable cause to issue arrest warrants at this time as to any
00:43:19
further issues on whether to present this to a glen County grand jury that will happen to wait for the next
00:43:27
District Attorney's review please consider this an open file until that decision is made and restrict the
00:43:36
release of any information under Georgia open records act request so that's where
00:43:42
it stood until really in my opinion here Captain until the video came out yeah again is
00:43:52
this because I mean the court systems have been a stand stand still anyways because of the co mhm so is it because
00:44:01
of that or was it taking a long time I mean we have a individual that you're going to try to
00:44:10
bring charges if you're going to bring charges against them what are they murder murder in the second degree
00:44:20
manslaughter this guy was a retired police officer and somebody that work worked uh did
00:44:27
investigative work for prosecutors so how many individuals does he know in the system and how long is that going to
00:44:36
take you to find somebody that's qualified to even be able to investigate this um without any conflict of interest
00:44:44
yeah and there in lies the problem um and as you said he's connected to so many people that that's where I think
00:44:50
it's not clear or wouldn't be immediately clear to some of these offices to remove themselves immediately
00:44:58
from the case what I feared was going to happen here is that we would get to a point where who's going to take it on
00:45:07
somebody has to right and if everybody keeps REM removing themselves then where does it go thankfully gbi Georgia Bureau
00:45:15
of Investigation will take over the investigation itself which is which is great because that's a very good
00:45:24
upstanding organization in fact we discussed them at length last week for our Casanova killer case so let's talk
00:45:32
about the video real quick because this is what I think really helped to generate things in a completely
00:45:38
different direction a video of the shooting was uploaded on May 5th on a website for a local radio station this
00:45:47
is wgig which was received they received it from Gregory mcel from one of the people
00:45:54
in question but it was removed within 2 hours for being too graphic and anybody that's seen the video will agree with
00:46:02
that statement the video was then uploaded to YouTube that same day ahmad's family's attorney posted a 28
00:46:11
second segment on the video on Twitter I did not see that the video of the shooting went viral Glen County Police
00:46:20
requested the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to look into how the video was publicized the guardian published an
00:46:29
edited version of the video on May 6th so it it's out there and very quickly what we see here Captain is Georgia
00:46:39
Bureau of Investigation found probable cause to charge Gregory and Travis mcel within 36 hours of taking the case
00:46:50
on yeah so on May 7th they arrested the pair on charges of felony murder and aggravated assault the Michaels were
00:46:57
booked into Glen County jail and they did have their appearance before the magistrate the following day this will
00:47:06
eventually lead to a third arrest where we have William Brian the man who filmed the said video mhm who was
00:47:16
eventually charged this was on May 21st they charged him with felony murder and attempted to commit false
00:47:24
imprisonment this according to the arrest form well and as the video went viral you had people like LeBron James
00:47:32
and and other celebrities uh retweeting it out as well yeah and that helped uh to get it in
00:47:39
front of the public who then calls into question really what the hell's going on
00:47:44
here and is it necessary to make an actual arrest in which we see gbi makes that happen very quickly afterwards I
00:47:54
did want to point out to here captain that we did have ahad's 26th birthday would have been May 8th so just a couple
00:48:03
weeks ago and on this day thousands of supporters gathered and they did a u IR run with a mod run it was a
00:48:15
2.23 mile run and the the 2.23 is to remind us all that he was shot and killed on February 23rd I think
00:48:28
some people did a 2.26 because he was should have been turning 26 I know Oprah did a
00:48:36
2.26 and now that's where the case sits here Captain we have three people charged with felony murder we have Ahad
00:48:45
who we've lost and we're we're sitting here waiting to figure out what is going to happen how are they going to Hash
00:48:52
this thing out at trial the event itself plus the videos lead to a lot of speculation a lot of opinions I think
00:49:02
mhm and instead of diving into that right now we wanted to save that for a separate episode so we wanted to give
00:49:11
you kind of a breakdown of if you heard about this case but didn't know much about it this is kind of what's going on
00:49:17
Y and now we're going to wait for the next steps we have some very strong thoughts and opinions on this situation
00:49:27
and we're going to get into those tomorrow well and the problem that we have here captain and that we're always
00:49:33
going to be faced with is the fact that the McMichaels were not arrested until was it 70 some days after this
00:49:43
event after the death of Ahmad and that Sparks the debate of racial profiling in
00:49:51
America and it really called into question the efforts of the Glen County Police Department and the Brunswick
00:49:59
District Attorney's Office they've been nationally criticized for their handling
00:50:04
of the case and more importantly the delayed arrest right but you can't get a you can't get an arrest right unless you
00:50:11
have a prosecutor on the case who says that hey there's evidence to arrest this guy or these guys there's reason to
00:50:20
charge them with this and this and we didn't have that what we had immediately was the Brunswick District Attorney's
00:50:26
Office saying we can't take this case and then we have Barnhill who says look everything that happened it went down
00:50:34
like this and it was within the law of Georgia law there was nothing elal what the McMichaels did they were allowed to
00:50:44
open carry they were allowed to defend themselves the problem is within those words and those decisions and those
00:50:53
opinions what we have here is the labeling of Ahmad as a burglar that he was there to burglarize this property
00:51:04
now we know that he trespassed but we can't say for certain that he was there to burglarize this property and that's
00:51:12
where this whole thing gets really messy and I wanted to make sure we wanted to make sure that we spent this first
00:51:19
episode going beyond the headlines because the headlines are stunning but the headlines are also they're just
00:51:25
shockingly bad because depending on which ones you read it sounds like oh my God some racist white dudes did some
00:51:33
horrible thing and then other other headlines read completely different that Ahmad was a terrible guy and so we
00:51:41
wanted to spend this episode to dive into what exactly is going on and give you the facts of the case that are
00:51:49
behind the headlines [Music] all right we want to know what you think go over to True Crim
00:52:07
garage.com and leave us a comment on the blog but be respectful because if you if
00:52:15
you put garbage we delete the garbage we don't need that knock it off and if you
00:52:21
want more garage check out all of our old episodes are available on the Stitcher app and if you go and get
00:52:28
Stitcher premium you can hear our other show off the Record the captain and I recorded a fantastic off the Record
00:52:35
yesterday lots of talking lots of chatter lots of good True Crime talk and we discussed the case missing girl case
00:52:43
in Ohio Madison Bell recently found safe until tomorrow be good be kind and don't
00:52:54
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