A jury reached its verdict Wednesday in the Ahmaud Arbery case at the Glynn County Courthouse in Brunswick, Georgia.
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A 12-person jury on Wednesday reached a verdict in the Ahmaud Arbery murder case.
The jury found Travis McMichael, his father Greg McMichael and their neighbor, William “Roddie” Ryan, guilty of felony murder, among other charges.
Travis McMichael, 35, his father Greg McMichael, 65, and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan, 52, were facing nine counts each.
Ahmaud Arbery’s friends and family were jubilant outside the Glynn County Courthouse on Wednesday after three men were found guilty of murdering the 25-year-old.
“For real, all lives matter, not just black children. We don’t want to see nobody go through this. I don’t want no daddy to watch his kid get shot down like that. It’s all our problem. So let’s keep fighting to make this a better place for all human beings. Love everybody! All human beings need to be treated equally,” Marcus Arbery, Ahmaud Arbery’s father, said after the jury came back with their verdict.
Linda Gamble told Fox News that she is happy Arbery’s family “can sleep now.”
“They can rest,” Gamble said. “There is going to be a chair empty at their dinner table, but they can look at that empty chair and see peace.”
Other supporters said that while they are happy with the verdict, there’s still a long road ahead.
“We got justice for this brother, but we got a lot of work to do,” Dana Roberts Beckham said.
Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Joyce Beatty took aim at the “vitriol and racist tropes invoked by the defense” as she praised the guilty verdicts for the three men who were convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery.
“This story — although devastating — is not new; we’ve seen this play out repeatedly. Vigilantes acting with racial animus take the lives of Black men and boys, and claim self-defense when confronted with the consequences of their actions,” Beatty said in a statement after the jury reached their verdict.
“Travis McMichael; his father, Gregory McMichael; and William Bryan are criminals who deserve to be punished for their role(s) in murdering 25-year-old, Mr. Ahmaud Arbery.”