The two white men accused of shooting and killing Ahmaud Arbery while he was jogging in the Satilla Shores neighborhood outside Brunswick had a run-in with a young black man at the same property just 12 days prior, according to a neighbor.
As reported by the Atlantic Journal-Constitution, Diego Perez is the neighbor who went to investigate an incident on February 11, where he ran into Gregory McMichael and Travis McMichael. He was also at the shooting scene immediately after Arbery was shot on February 23. Perez recognized Arbery as the young back man from the February 11 incident, according to reports.
The construction site had a motion sensor security camera, which alerted the property owner, Larry English, who lives 2 hours away, that someone was on the property. The owner texted the video to Perez, who lived nearby and had offered to keep an eye on the property, asking him to check it out. Perez armed himself and went to check on the property where he says he saw Travis McMichael approach a young black man who had entered the construction site.
Travis McMichael confronted the person in the yard at the site, but he claimed he became alarmed when he saw the person reach for their waistband. At that point, McMichael left to go get his father and then returned to the scene. Gregory McMichael called the Glynn County Police Department to alert them of the trespasser. Nothing was taken from the property.
Perez, who has spoken with the GBI, claims he did not know the McMichael’s nor did he provide them with any video footage.
The next time Perez saw Arbery was on February 23, and he was laid out in the middle of the street, fatally shot.
“All we knew about him was he was the guy who kept showing up on our cameras,” Perez said. “No one knew who it was.”
Larry English, the owner of the property, never indicated a robbery happened at the property, as he maintains nothing ever went missing, and that he “would not have wanted a vigilante response.”
Gregory McMichael and Travis McMichael were arrested last week by the GBI and charged with felony murder and aggravated assault. The father and son were denied bond and remain behind bars.
