The McMichaels can’t be charged with a hate crime by the state in the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery because the law doesn’t exist in Georgia

954horecchio@businessinsider.com (Haven Orecchio-Egresitz)May 8, 2020, 5:07 PM EDT

Associated Press

• Georgia is one of four states without a hate crime law.
• Its previous law was struck down in 2004 after the state’s Supreme Court found it “unconstitutionally broad.” 
• The February killing of Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed black man who was shot dead while jogging, has reignited calls for new legislation. 
• Visit Insider’s homepage for more stories.

Gregory and Travis McMichael were arrested Thursday in the shooting death of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed black man who was jogging in a Brunswick, Georgia. 

Each of the men faces murder and aggregated assault charges. While many, including attorneys for Arbery, believe that the shooting was racially motivated, the father and son won’t be facing possible state hate crime charges.

That’s because “there’s no hate crime in Georgia,” Georgia Bureau of Investigations Director Vic Reynolds said in a press conference Friday.

Georgia is one of four states — the others are South Carolina, Wyoming, and Arkansas — that have no hate crime laws.

A hate crime is an offense like murder, arson, or vandalism with an added element of bias, according to the FBI, which prosecutes federal hate crimes. 

I RUN WITH MAUD/Facebook

Arbery was exercising in his neighborhood at about 1 p.m. on February 23.

Gregory McMichaels, a 64-year-old former police officer and district attorney’s office investigator, and his son Travis, 34, followed him down the street. 

A video taken by a neighbor of the McMichaels, William Bryan, shows Travis confronting Arbery with a gun. Gunshots then ring out and Arbery stumbles and falls to his death. 

In a police report from the day of the shooting, Gregory McMichael said that he pursued Arbery because he resembled a man believed to be responsible for local break-ins. 

The Brunswick News, however, reported that only one burglary was reported in the area from the start of 2020 to the day Arbery died.

“This murderous father and son duo took the law into their own hands,” Arbery’s family’s attorney, Benjamin Crump, said. “It’s a travesty of justice that they enjoyed their freedom for 74 days after taking the life of a young black man who was simply jogging.”