By Carol Ozemhoya
As the trial of three White men charged with murder in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery entered its second day Monday, the jury learned about Arbery’s final moments — and that the first police officer to arrive at the scene did not render lifesaving aid, reports Huffington Post.
Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, was shot to death in February 2020 while out for a jog in the Satilla Shores neighborhood of coastal Georgia. A jury is now considering murder charges against Gregory and Travis McMichael and William Bryan. On Monday, prosecutors asked former Glynn County patrol Officer Ricky Minshew, the first officer to respond to the shooting, about Satilla Shores, which he usually patrolled. The day Arbery was killed, Minshew told prosecutors, he’d received a call about a “suspicious Black male in the neighborhood wearing a white T-shirt.”
Minshew testified that he believed Arbery was dead by the time he arrived. A shotgun lay in the grass, covered in blood, Minshew said, when he got there. Jurors were shown photos of the scene that matched Minshew’s description.
The officer said he did not render aid to Arbery because he was the only officer present and there was no one “to watch his back.” He said he did not have medical materials on hand, but that he did call for emergency services.
Outside court a short time later, Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, spoke with reporters and questioned why Minshew did not render aid to her son. “I understood he had to go and secure the crime scene, but at the same time, he had a guy laying in the middle of the road in a puddle of blood,” Cooper-Jones told reporters.
The jury also heard from Sheila Ramos, an investigator and crime scene technician with the Glynn County Police Department. She testified that Arbery was unarmed when his killers confronted him. The defendants have claimed they believed at the time that Arbery was in the area to commit break-ins. Ramos, however, testified that Arbery did not have a phone, a weapon or tools with him when he was chased down and killed.
