Refusing to let the media define the Ahmaud Arbery narrative: Here are the facts we know

In the Ahmaud Arbery case, the media, as always, are theorizing in advance of the data, and they are doing so in service to a divisive racial agenda. The undisputed facts (excluding the inevitably self-interested statements from the men arrested) are as follows:

Travis McMichael shot 24-year-old Arbery. The question is whether it was self-defense, manslaughter or murder.

Greg and Travis McMichaels (father and son) are white, while Arbery was black.

Videos show Arbery entering a home under construction and Arbery inside the construction site.

Shortly before Arbery was shot, Greg called 911 to report that “There’s a black male running down the street.” He’s then heard to say “Goddamit. C’mon, Travis.”

In a second 911 call around the same time, an unidentified caller reported a possible burglary in the neighborhood, saying, “There’s a guy in the house right now, a house under construction.” Next, the caller said, “And he’s running right now. There he goes right now.” The unidentified caller reported that the possible burglar had been seen before in the neighborhood and had “been caught on the camera a bunch before at night,” adding “It’s kind of an ongoing thing out here.”

An infamous video (above) shows Arbery either running or jogging down the left side of the street. The verb “running” implies escape or aggression. The verb “jogging” has a recreational feel.

A white pick-up is seen further up the road, on the right side, with a man standing by the driver’s side door. Arbery abruptly veers across the street towards the right rear of the truck. A man stands in the truck bed. The video swerves, showing only foliage.

Seconds later, Arbery is running at top speed counterclockwise around the truck’s front right side.

Problem being that in the video the victim is running on the left side of the street, the hammer is in the right lane, and there is no film that he threw it.

Not much of a problem. Film is grainy and difficult to see things clearly. *IF* Arbery threw the hammer, the video guy and at least the younger McMichael will probably say so.

FBI might be able to improve the video sufficiently to see more detail. We'll have to wait and see.

Could be an amazing coincidence that the hammer just happened to be lying in the road along which Arbery was running. Might have no significance at all.

There is also the inconvenient fact that the owner of the construction site says nothing was taken

Won't mean anything until the actual construction workers all claim the same thing. Owner lives in a different city, and probably doesn't even know if a hammer and boots were taken because they probably wouldn't be his anyways.

I also think the owner is restricting his statement to just the day of this incident. Clearly there has been previous problems with thefts at this site, and this is why he installed a camera that would alert him.

Owner is just trying to protect his own @$$.

Well, for starters, I was pointing out the irony of the guy losing his life over a $25 clawhammer.

Claiming he lost his life because of a $25 clawhammer is misdirection. He lost his life because he violently attacked a man holding a shotgun. He might have been annoyed and questioned over a $25 clawhammer, possibly arrested, but that is all he was going to get in consequence of the $25 claw hammer.

That is, unless I have an insatiable grudge against him and just totally hate his guts for stealing a revolver out of my truck. In that case I might be just itching for an excuse to go deal with him personally.

And there might be some truth in that, though I think you go over the top with "insatiable grudge."

I know I would very much like to see someone who stole a gun from me go to jail, but I wouldn't kill him over it unless I thought he was going to try to kill me.

‘Nobody makes up a claim of a video of which they were unaware. It’s not humanly possible.’

sigh; you really are a card...if you re-read the post I responded to, the poster claimed as a ‘fact’ that McMichael saw a video of Arbery ‘stealing’...that is what I said was assertion, the ‘stealing part of it...in all that blather you just posted, you said nothing of anybody seeing a video that actually shows Arbery ‘stealing’ anything...

Oh I see, if someone doesn’t see the situation exactly as you do, they are lying.

No, you don't see. You are trying to deliberate misdirection again. I point out the homeowner not only has a very good reason for saying nothing was stolen, but he also may in fact not actually know if anything was stolen, because what was stolen likely didn't belong to him anyways.

This is not a matter of "see the situation exactly as you do." It's a matter of seeing multiple possibilities, and then accepting the most probable one as the truth.

I would like to take credit for this methodology, but it's long been known as "Occam's razor", or alternatively "Hanlon's razor."

that is absolute baloney, and would be laughed out of any courtroom if introduced as ‘evidence’...

You need to stop presenting what you wish to believe as reality.

Seeing someone enter a house that is known to have been burglarized numerous times in the past is good probable cause. You don't even have to take my word for it. Another Freeper said he was a Lawyer with 30 years of experience in the Georgia judicial system, and he said it's quite good probable cause.

So the crux of your point hinges upon whether or not a known criminal at night in a house known to be burglarized numerous times in the past such that they installed a camera to catch him, might not have been caught on camera in the act, all the video of which we have yet to see because the owner is being a cowardly d*ck, and so therefore hasn't been shown to be "stealing"?

Are you daft? What else is he doing in there at night?

Again, the owner hasn't let people see all the videos. He wants no part of this. McMichael may very well have seen a video of Arbery stealing but just because we haven't seen it, doesn't mean that McMichael hasn't seen it either!

"Claiming he lost his life because of a $25 clawhammer is misdirection. "

What other crime had he allegedly committed at that time and place, other than snooping around on a construction site?

"He lost his life because he violently attacked a man holding a shotgun."

If the shoe's on the other foot - if you're aggressively confronted on a public street by two guys who aren't the same color as you, and who have a grudge against you, and you can clearly see that one of them has a shotgun - isn't it reasonable to conclude that you're about to die and that your only slim chance is to get in close with the guy with the shotgun and make as close to a fair fight of it as you can?

“”If the shoe’s on the other foot - if you’re aggressively confronted on a public street by two guys who aren’t the same color as you, and who have a grudge against you, and you can clearly see that one of them has a shotgun - isn’t it reasonable to conclude that you’re about to die and that your only slim chance is to get in close with the guy with the shotgun and make as close to a fair fight of it as you can””

His foot was trespassing when he stepped on the property, his foot later changed that to burglary when he went into a private residence, his foot was later fleeing to allude due to being seen. Then his not so intelligent foot decided to attack a man with a shotgun. The one thing his foot wasn’t doing was peacefully jogging down the road.

“Don't never, ever pursue a thief. Justice will catch up with him in time and in the meanwhile one can go buy a new framing hammer.”

This is good counsel for a civilian.

The scary part: it is good advice for law enforcement officers.

Police should never pursue a thief, drug dealer, human trafficker - especially if the offender is a member of a protected class.

To pursue and arrest such an individual will not increase the officer's pay, but it does greatly increase the probability that the officer will be injured, killed out-right, or subjected to legal action.

And if a member of a protected class dies during an arrest, the officer faces the possibility of being accused of murder.

Sure, law enforcement officers swear an oath to uphold the law - but so did President Obama. President Obama’s income earning potential hasn't gone down because he didn't uphold his oath.

And police officers that turn a blind eye to theft, drug-dealing, property crimes, human trafficking are unlikely to be criticized by their paymasters in the blue culture.

The encroaching blue culture has sent law enforcement clues to their expected behavior.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8083381/New-York-City-sees-surge-major-crime-NYPD-blames-new-bail-reforms.html

Smart law enforcement should watch the way the wind is blowing and stop pursuing thieves, drug dealers, human traffickers - especially if they are members of a protected class.

The video clearly shows his footwear, a hammer, and the lineage of the hammer.

If you are going to claim I said something, you need to provide a link where I said it. I very much doubt I used "lineage of the hammer".

I would have more likely said "provenance" or some such. A hammer is an inanimate object. It doesn't not posses "lineage" because it isn't born.

Yes, you can see his footware in the grainy video, and it does appear from the video that he is wearing something that comes over his ankles, but I don't consider this good enough to claim that these are in fact "boots" as many have done.

Maybe they are, but i'm not yet so certain of this that I'm going to insist they are boots.

According to the people at reddit, it certainly looks like he was wearing boots.

https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/gg35jd/was_ahmaud_arbery_wearing_boots_when_he_was_killed/

What other crime had he allegedly committed at that time and place, other than snooping around on a construction site?

This is like catching your wife in bed with another man and asking "what other men have you slept with today"?

Does it matter? One crime is enough!

Looking at it another way, how many crimes do *YOU* think must be committed before action is taken? What is the minimum threshold number of crimes? I thought it was one, but apparently you feel differently.

No. It's reasonable to conclude that if you attack the one holding the shotgun you will definitely die.

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