A community finds itself suddenly awash in crime—generally property crimes of varying degrees, some definitely endangering life. Petty theft of items left unattended, lawnmowers taken from open garages, outright felony burglaries, even home invasions. The police either declined to respond or the response is ineffective.
The community decides they need to do something themselves. They start Neighborhood Watch, they buy guns, they start calling in suspicious activity and license plate numbers to 911. Then there’s a confrontation between a member of the neighborhood and a miscreant, with the miscreant ending up shot dead, usually in circumstances that look overwhelmingly like lawful self-defense.
Nevertheless, and especially if the dead miscreant turns out to be a racial minority or of a political faction favored by the Progressive Left, there’s an immediate hyper-politicization of the event as racist, white supremacist, or otherwise beyond the pale. The neighborhood member, now the defendant in a murder trial, suddenly find their lives destroyed, and face the prospect of the rest of their life in prison—and the only thing that can save them is a fair and impartial jury.
That was the pattern in the George Zimmerman shooting, it was the pattern in the Kyle Rittenhouse shootings, and it is the pattern in the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery.
What had been a charming little community was being ravaged by property crimes and burglaries. Homeowners began installing security cameras all over their homes for the first time. Parents would not allow their children to play outside after dinner, and then not at all.
People began keeping guns accessible and talking with each other in person and in social media about the growing crime problem. They also began to make a lot of calls to 911, but the police response was ineffectual, as the suspicious persons were usually gone by the time the police arrived.
Apparently, one of the criminal predators committing serial property crimes in this neighborhood was one Ahmaud Arbery. He’d been caught repeatedly on surveillance camera, generally in the dark of night, inside a local home under construction from which thousands of dollars of property had been stolen over time—generally in the dark of night. On at least one occasion he’d been frightened into flight by neighbors seeing him lurking in shadows among houses, and having headlights put on him as the neighbors called 911.
Travis McMichael himself had a pistol stolen from his car...
Felony burglary does not require that any property be actually stolen, for example, so all the State’s talk about Arbery not having stolen property in his possession was completely irrelevant. Similarly, there was never any evidence introduced at any time in the trial that Arbery ever recreationally jogged in that neighborhood—not a single family member, friend, or resident of the community testified to anything like that.
*****
Arbery was never found with any stolen property. These guys screwed up. Big time. There’s a right way and a wrong way.
-SB
Mark