Lawyers spar over proposed evidence of Ahmaud Arbery's past law enforcement encounters
CBSN
Defense attorneys for the Georgia men charged in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery want a judge to allow them to introduce evidence showing Arbery had several run-ins with law enforcement in the years before his February 2020 fatal shooting. At a pre-trial motions hearing in Glynn County court Wednesday, the defense called a series of law enforcement officials who described Arbery as agitated and hostile during encounters over shoplifting and trespassing incidents.
A Cobb County prosecutor strongly objected to allowing the evidence at the October trial, calling it irrelevant because Travis McMichael and his father Gregory McMichael had no knowledge of the incidents when they armed themselves and pursued Arbery through their Brunswick neighborhood. "The only purpose for placing the 'other acts' of Mr. Arbery before jury is to is to smear the character of Mr. Arbery and suggest that his murder was deserved," prosecutors wrote in a court filing.Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.