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https://apnews.com/article/ahmaud-arbery-prosecutor-trial-jackie-johnson- 7818ec12eb4e86c5ae87a7261d09f08f

BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — A former prosecutor took the witness stand Tuesday
to deny charges that she abused her power to protect the men who chased
and killed Ahmaud Arbery in 2020, insisting she knew few details until cellphone video leaked online two months later that showed Arbery being
shot dead in the street.

Former District Attorney Jackie Johnson cried as she recalled a brief
meeting with Arbery’s mother soon after the video became public. Johnson
had recused her office from handling the death case because Arbery’s
shooter was the son of a former employee. She said her initial
understanding had been that Arbery was shot while committing a burglary.
The video told a different story.

“I felt like he was murdered,” Johnson said of her reaction to the video
clip that showed the Black man running and another man standing in his
path holding a shotgun. Arbery was killed by two close-range shots as he grabbed for the weapon.

Arbery’s parents had previously been told that police believed their son’s killing had been a justified act of self-defense. After seeing the video, Johnson said, she worried that they “thought I had covered up the murder
of their son.”

The former prosecutor is on trial charged with violating her oath of
office, a felony punishable by one to five years in prison. Prosecutors
say she worked behind the scenes to get George Barnhill, a neighboring
district attorney, assigned to Arbery’s death after he had already advised police the shooting wasn’t a crime.


“Did you ever ask George Barnhill: This is a friend of mine, he’s a
coworker of mine. This is his child. Be sympathetic, find self-defense, anything like that? Did you make any suggestion ever?” defense attorney
Brian Steel asked Johnson on the witness stand.

“No,” she replied.

Johnson was the top state prosecutor for coastal Glynn County when Arbery
was fatally shot on Feb. 23, 2020. Father and son Greg and Travis Michael
armed themselves and set off in a pickup truck after the running Black
man, wrongly suspecting he was a burglar. A neighbor, William “Roddie”
Bryan, joined the chase and recorded cellphone video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery.

Greg McMichael had retired months earlier from his longtime job as an investigator for Johnson’s office. About an hour after the shooting, he
left a voicemail on Johnson’s cellphone asking her for help.

Johnson acknowledged talking with Greg McMichael seven times between the
day of the shooting and the day the video leaked. But she denied ever
offering him assistance or discussing details of the case.

“I told him I hope he understood our office was not going to be involved
in the case,” Johnson said.

Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr’s office is prosecuting Johnson. John Fowler, the lead prosecutor in the trial, on cross-examination questioned whether Johnson’s account of those phone calls could be trusted.

“Nobody else heard those calls,” Fowler said. “Those phone calls between
you and Greg McMichael remain between you and Greg McMichael and nobody
else.”

Johnson replied: “I’m telling you what happened.”

No one was arrested in Arbery’s death for more than two months until
cellphone video of the shooting leaked online and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the case from local police. Both McMichaels and
Bryan were later charged and convicted of murder as well as federal hate crimes.

Johnson lost reelection in November 2020, a few months after Arbery was
killed. She was indicted almost a year later.

Johnson testified that the way she viewed Arbery’s shooting changed
completely after she saw the video in early May 2020. She said she then realized Greg McMichael was likely “a murder suspect” and she contacted
GBI investigators to provide voice messages he had left her after the
shooting.

She also came face to face with Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, for
the first time outside the courthouse soon after the video became public.

“She called my name. I didn’t know her before I’d seen her on television,” Johnson said through tears. “And I walked over to her and she told me, she said, `I’m Ahmaud’s mother.’ I grabbed her hand and I said, `I’m so, so
sorry about your son.’”

The prosecution suffered a blow after resting their case Monday when
Senior Judge John R. Turner ordered Johnson acquitted of a second charge
that she obstructed police investigating Arbery’s death. Turner granted a
rare directed verdict after concluding there was “not one scintilla of evidence” to support that charge.


--
November 5, 2024 - Congratulations President Donald Trump. We look
forward to America being great again.

The disease known as Kamala Harris has been effectively treated and
eradicated.

We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that
stupid people won't be offended.

Durham Report: The FBI has an integrity problem. It has none.

Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden
fiasco, President Trump.

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp. Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood
queer liberal democrat donors.

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