Prosecutors Show Voluminous Evidence of Racism by Arbery Murderers

The government emphasized not only racial slurs but also expressions of support for vigilantism.

BRUNSWICK, Ga. — Federal prosecutors in the hate crimes trial of Ahmaud Arbery’s three murderers on Wednesday presented the jury with voluminous digital evidence of racism, as the government continued to build its case that the defendants, who are white, chased Mr. Arbery through their South Georgia neighborhood because he was Black.

Amy Vaughan, an intelligence analyst with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, walked the jury through text messages and social media posts by two of the defendants, Travis McMichael and William Bryan, calmly reading bigoted language so harsh that the prosecutor Christopher J. Perras issued a warning to people in the courtroom gallery before she began. None of the racist statements specifically mentioned Mr. Arbery. But prosecutors are hoping that they will help convince the jury that racism motivated the trio to pursue him.

The prosecutors’ strategy about how they would use this evidence in service of their goal became clearer on Wednesday. They plan to show the men’s racist words were too frequent to be considered slips of the tongue. They have taken pains to note that some of the language was used within days or months of Mr. Arbery’s killing. They have emphasized not only racist remarks, but expressions of support for vigilantism: The jury learned that roughly five months before the killing, Gregory McMichael, 66, Travis McMichael’s father and the third defendant in the case, posted a meme on Facebook that said, “A gun in the hand is worth more than the entire police force on the phone.”