Ahmaud Arbery’s Mother Hopes for Accountability in Son’s Trial

By Tadi Abedje Published: October 19, 2021

Ahmaud Arbery’s Mother Hopes for Accountability in Son’s Trial

In Summary

Wanda Cooper-Jones and her attorney, S. Lee Meritt joined Yodit Tewolde on “Making the Case” to discuss the importance of the trial.

Today is the first day of the trial of the of the three white individuals, Gregory McMichael, his son Travis and William “Roddie” Bryan who are accused of killing Ahmaud Arbery. It started off with the jury selection sent as jury duty summons to 1,000 residents of Brunswick, Georgia. Of those residents, 12 will be selected to make the huge decision if those accused individuals are guilty or not.

The trial could take at least a month and Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, said that she’ll take it one day at a time.

When “Making the Case” host Yodit Tewolde asked how confident Cooper-Jones was that there will be a fair and impartial jury, she said, “I’m thinking back to the election of [District Attorney] Jackie Johnson, how we were able to get a new DA. …It also showed me that they was some fair people that was in my community.”

The incident happened on Feb. 23, 2020, as Arbery was just going out for a jog near a suburb in Brunswick. What happened next ended tragically as Gregory and Travis McMichael followed him and fired the fatal shots, claiming he resembled a suspect in a string of break-ins the police had no knowledge about.

Arbery’s death is another case along with Breonna Taylor and George Floyd’s murders that highlighted the racial injustice in the legal system. The murder trial of Arbery is viewed as one of the most important trials in recent history.

“We want to see if the courts will give him a fair shake,” said family attorney S. Lee Meritt. “Having a fair and impartial jury who’s able to hear the evidence and come up with the right conclusion, which we believe is a conviction, is something that we still have some reservations about.”

Even though Cooper-Jones can’t bring her youngest child back, she hopes that the suspects will pay the price.

“Ahmaud was loved, he enjoyed jogging,” she said. “I never thought I would lose Ahmaud one day when he went out for a jog but unfortunately, I did. I never thought that this day would come.”