Murdered jogger Ahmaud Arbery is being remembered in Georgia a year after being killed for jogging through a neighborhood.
Arbery’s loved ones have organized a memorial procession to take place on Tuesday evening. The procession will run through the Satilla Shores subdivision, the same place where racist white men murdered Arbery as he jogged through the neighborhood. Organizers ask supporters outside Brunswick to participate in the event virtually by running for 2.23-miles (3.59-kilometers) to remember the avid jogger.
“It is important to remind people of the origins when it all started,” said Jason Vaughn, organizer of the anniversary events. Vaughn is Arbery’s former high school football coach. “For a long time, it was like we were yelling into the dark, and nobody was listening.”
Arbery was killed on February 23rd, 2020 while jogging through the Satilla Shores subdivision. Three white men–Travis McMichael, his father, Greg McMichael, and neighbor Roddie Bryan–chased Arbery down before Travis jumped from the vehicle, struggling with Arbery before shooting him twice. The three have claimed they felt he was a burglar. However, there has never been any evidence to suggest that Arbery broke into any homes.
It took authorities nearly two months to arrest because the first prosecutor assigned to the case refused to bring about charges. On May 5th, leaked cell phone footage of the murder outraged the country. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the case and arrested the gunmen soon after.
On Tuesday, Wanda Cooper, Arbery’s mother, filed a civil lawsuit accusing her son’s killers and local authorities, who initially responded to the shooting, of violating his civil rights. The complaint filed in the U.S. District Court seeks $1 million. Attorneys for the men have maintained that they suspected Arbery of being a burglar; therefore, no crime had been committed.
