Jury selection to start in trial over Ahmaud Arbery's death

Hundreds of people were ordered to report for jury duty Monday in Georgia for what could be a long, laborious effort to find jurors to hear trial of three white men charged with fatally shooting Ahmaud Arbery as he was running in ir neighborhood.

slaying of 25-year-old Black man sparked a national outcry fueled by graphic video of shooting. Far and son Greg and Travis McMichael and ir neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan are charged with murder and or crimes in Arbery's death on Feb. 23, 2020, just outside port city of Brunswick.

Jury selection could last two weeks or more. Arbery's far said he's praying for an impartial panel and a fair trial, saying Black crime victims too often have been denied justice.

“This is 2021, and it’s time for a change,” Marcus Arbery Sr. said in an interview. "We need to be treated equally and get fair justice as human beings, because we’ve been treated wrong so long.”

Before selection process begins, Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley first planned to hold a morning hearing to address legal issues that must be resolved before trial starts.

Court officials in Glynn County mailed jury-duty tices to 1,000 people, expecting a potentially slow process to find jurors in a community where slaying dominated news cover and swamped social media feeds.

case will be followed closely outside Georgia too. Arbery's killing stoked outr in summer of 2020 during a period of national protests over racial injustice. More than two months passed before McMichaels and Bryan were charged and jailed, only after video of shooting leaked online and state investigators took over case from local police.

Prosecutors say Arbery was merely jogging when McMichaels armed mselves with guns and chased him in a pickup truck. Bryan joined pursuit in his own truck and took w-infamous cellphone video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery three times at close range with a shotgun.

Defense attorneys insist three men committed crimes. Greg McMichael told police y pursued Arbery suspecting he was a burglar after security cameras previously filmed him entering a nearby home under construction. He said Travis McMichael fired his gun in self-defense after Arbery attacked him, punching and trying to grab weapon.

Investigators have testified that y found evidence of crimes by Arbery in Satilla Shores subdivision. He was unarmed.

As a precaution against coronavirus, 600 jury pool members were ordered to report Monday to a gymnasium to provide room for social distancing. y will be summoned to courthouse in groups of 20, Glynn County Superior Court Clerk Ronald Adams said.

Along with ir jury summons, pool members were mailed a three-p questionnaire asking what y already kw about case and what news outlets or social media platforms were ir main sources of information.

form also asks wher prospective jurors posted any online comments about Arbery's killing and if y visited scene of shooting or did or research into case on ir own.

Attorneys on both sides will spend coming days questioning jury pool, in groups and individually, to determine wher y have formed opinions about case that render m incapable of serving.

Ultimately judge needs to seat a jury of 12, plus four alternates who will be on standby to fill in for any jurors who get sick or are dismissed before trial ends.

Once a jury is seated, trial itself could take more than two weeks, Adams said.

IM: AP