In a surprising twist to a story that has drawn nationwide attention, WSB-TV has confirmed that the man who leaked the viral video of the shooting of an unarmed black jogger in south Georgia is one of the murder suspects.
The video spread across social media just days before the Georgia Bureau of Investigation arrested Gregory and Travis McMichael. It shows Travis McMichael and Ahmaud Arbery in the street in Satilla Shores, a neighborhood outside of Brunswick, Georgia.
Travis McMichael has a shotgun, and his father is in the back of a pickup truck as the confrontation unfolds.
WSB-TV confirmed Friday that Greg McMichael leaked the video to a radio station, starting the avalanche of attention that landed him in jail on murder charges with his son.
Brunswick attorney Alan Tucker said Greg McMichael thought leaking the video would clear up some rumors circulating in the community, WSB-TV reported. McMichael had no idea the video would spark global outrage.
Tucker said Greg McMichael came to him as a friend and not as an attorney to figure out how to deliver the video “and others” to a talk show host of a local Brunswick radio station.
Tucker said they hoped when the video was viewed by the public, it would ease racial tensions in the community.
"I didn't want the neighborhood to become a Ferguson," Tucker said.
He told WSB-TV that Arbery didn't deserve to die.
“That young man did not deserve to be shot," Tucker said. “There was no reason in the world for Travis to pull a shotgun out of a damn truck -- none."
Tucker did not want to comment publicly on the charges against Greg or Travis McMichael.
L. Chris Stewart, the attorney for Arbery’s family, told WSB-TV they have questions about the video.
“I have no doubt that Mr. McMichael and his son believe what he did was OK. It just wasn’t,” Stewart said. “Travis never should have gotten that shotgun. That is significant.”
“We know several other critically important facts. Those facts point to a very different story," Linda and Frank Hogue, the attorneys for Greg McMichael, insist their client did not commit murder and that there is more to the story.
Read more at WSB-TV.com
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