Video of Ahmaud Arbery getting frisked and patted down by cops in 2017 might say a lot about Glynn County PD’s attitude toward black people … keeping in mind Gregory McMichael was once a member of that force.
The video shows 2 officers questioning Ahmad after finding him alone in his car, in a Brunswick, GA park in November 2017. The officers asked to search his car, and the scene got intense when he said no and stepped toward his car. The officers immediately told him to stop and get his hands out of his pockets.
Despite the fact Ahmaud immediately obeyed their orders — and had his hands in the air — one officer pulled his taser and fired it. Now, the weapon malfunctioned, but Ahmaud was already getting down on the ground anyway.
About two minutes earlier, the officers had asked for ID, and Ahmaud complied and explained he’d been rapping in his car on his day off. When the officer came back with his license, Ahmaud said, “I ain’t got s**t on me. What the f**k you f**king with me for?”
The officer told him the area was known for drug activity and then proceeded to frisk Ahmaud for weapons. He had nothing on him, and there was nothing illegal about him parking in the area.
Still, the officer wanted to search his car … and that’s when the attempted-tasing went down … despite the fact they already knew he had no weapon on him.
He was not arrested or cited for anything.
The question now … is the video, first obtained by the Guardian, relevant to Ahmaud’s murder. You could argue it shows the Glynn County PD harassing a young black man who was guilty of nothing more than sitting in his car.
Of course, one of his accused murders, Gregory McMichael, is a retired detective with GCPD, who we know now told police to have at least one resident contact him directly if there was any sign of an intruder.
On the other hand, this police stop — harassment or not — is a completely different situation from what Ahmaud faced on February 23 … when 2 armed white men, Gregory and his son Travis McMichael, ambushed him in the middle of a road.
Neither is active law enforcement, nor were they in any uniform.