The trial of the three Georgia men who stand accused of the murder of Ahmaud Arbery continues to grind forward this week. On Monday, jurors were shown grisly pictures of Arbery’s body, including graphic photos of the shotgun wounds he received. One of the officers who responded to the scene of the shooting also testified about the conversation he had with Greg McMichael upon his arrival, saying that McMichael never used the words “detain, arrest, or trespass” during the interview. Greg McMichael also explained blood that was seen on his left hand when the police arrived by saying that he had pulled Arbery’s arm out from under his body to check to see if he had a weapon.

Neither the McMichaels nor Roddie Bryan are expected to testify during the trial. But that may not matter because police body cameras captured nearly all of the conversations they had at the scene of the crime and the older McMichael apparently had a lot to say. Unfortunately for the defense, the transcripts of those conversations indicate that he began changing his story almost immediately under questioning. In particular, he initially told police that he recognized Arbery from multiple incidents of burglaries in the neighborhood. But in fairly short order, he recanted that claim and focused only on the single home that was under construction where Arbery was seen entering the building on security camera footage. (Associated Press)

The man who initiated the chase that ended in Ahmaud Arbery’s death quickly changed his story about why he suspected the 25-year-old Black man running in his neighborhood was a criminal, two police officers testified Tuesday.

Glynn County police Officer Jeff Brandeberry told a jury that Greg McMichael — one of three white men on trial for murder in the case — at first told him that Arbery had been recorded by security cameras “breaking in all these houses out here.”

“Well, he makes frequent trips to the neighborhood and gets caught on video cameras every third or fourth night breaking into places and no one’s been able to catch him,” McMichael told Brandeberry, who read in open court from a transcript of the conversation recorded by his body camera.

So that was the first story that Greg McMichael told the police who arrived on the scene. He claimed that Ahmaud Arbery had been seen “every third or fourth night breaking into places.” But when they went down to the police station and Greg was interviewed by a detective, he said that it was only the one house under construction where Arbery had been seen. When asked if Arbery had been seen picking anything up or taking anything from the house, McMichael said, “You know, not that I recall.”

It’s difficult to say how much that change will resonate with the jury or if it really matters in the long run. What he was basically confessing to was a change from grabbing his guns to chase down a guy suspected of burglary to grabbing his guns and chasing down a guy suspected of trespassing. The point that the prosecution seems to be driving home is that the McMichaels and Bryan shouldn’t have been chasing Arbery down to begin with. None of them were active duty law enforcement officers at the time. If they really thought they had identified a criminal, they should have phoned the police and given them the suspect’s location.

It’s true that Georgia does have a law allowing for citizen arrests, but you still have to have a strong case of probable cause before you try it. And you have to see a crime being committed or have personal knowledge of such a crime. The defendant’s own statements appear to demonstrate that they had no knowledge of anything tying Arbery to a crime beyond possible trespassing. Also, now that one of the responding officers has testified that McMichael never said anything about arrest or detention, that defense claim about making a citizen’s arrest may be off the table. Making matters worse for them was some additional testimony from the detective reporting that Greg McMichael told him that if he’d had an open view “I’d have shot him myself.”

At times it has seemed as if the defense is almost trying to make the prosecutor’s job easier. That probably comes as something of a relief since she is the fourth prosecutor to be assigned to the case. (The first three were either removed over allegations of corruption or recused for having close ties to the people involved.) But all of these details may not even play very heavily into the jury’s decision. In the end, the defense is counting on those few seconds in the now-infamous video when the camera failed to show what happened when Arbery crossed in front of the pickup truck and approached Travis McMichael. Both the father and the son continue to insist that Arbery attempted to take the shotgun away from Travis and that he fired in self-defense because he was in fear of his life.

Given the makeup of the jury, the defense only needs to find one out of twelve jurors who will claim they believe that explanation and all three of the defendants could walk free, at least on the most serious charges. And if that happens, you can probably expect some places in Glynn County to be going up in flames as soon as darkness falls.