Category: US

Two of the three white men who chased and killed Ahmaud Arbery as he jogged through a Georgia neighborhood in early 2020 were sentenced to life in prison Monday for federal hate crimes. Travis McMichael, the man responsible for fatally shooting Arbery, and his father, Greg McMichael, had already been sentenced to life in prison without parole for their roles in the killing during a state trial in Georgia.

Months after the McMichaels and their neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, each received life sentences for murder in state court, all three men convicted in Arbery’s murder faced a second round of criminal penalties Monday for federal hate crimes committed in the deadly pursuit of the 25-year-old Black man. Bryan’s sentencing is scheduled to come later on Monday.

US District Court Judge Lisa Godbey Wood scheduled back-to-back hearings to individually sentence each of the defendants, starting with Travis McMichael, who fired a shotgun at Arbery after the street chase initiated by his father and joined by Bryan.

Arbery’s killing on Feb. 23, 2020, became part of a larger national reckoning over racial injustice and killings of unarmed Black people including George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Kentucky. Those two cases also resulted in the Justice Department bringing federal charges.

When the court hearings summarized in Georgia on Monday, Bryan faces a possible life sentence as well, after a jury convicted him along with the McMichaels in February of federal hate crimes, concluding that they violated Arbery’s civil rights and targeted him because of his race. All three men were also found guilty of attempted kidnapping, and the McMichaels face additional penalties for using firearms to commit a violent crime.

Whatever punishments they receive in federal court could ultimately prove more symbolic than anything. A state Superior Court judge imposed life sentences for all three men in January for Arbery’s murder, with both McMichaels denied any chance of parole.

All three defendants have remained jailed in coastal Glynn County, in the custody of US marshals, while awaiting sentencing after their federal convictions in January.

Because they were first charged and convicted of murder in a state court, protocol would have them turned them over to the Georgia Department of Corrections to serve their life terms in a state prison.

In a court filings last week, both Travis and Greg McMichael asked the judge to instead divert them to a federal prison, saying they won’t be safe in a Georgia prison system that’s the subject of a US Justice Department investigation focused on violence between inmates .

Arbery’s family has insisted the McMichaels and Bryan should serve their sentences in a state prison, arguing a federal penitentiary wouldn’t be as tough. His parents objected forcefully before the federal trial when both McMichaels sought a plea deal that would have included a request to transfer them to federal prison. The judge rejected the plea agreement.

A federal judge doesn’t have the authority to order the state to relinquish its lawful custody of inmates to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, said Ed Tarver, an Augusta lawyer and former US attorney for the Southern District of Georgia. He said the judge could request that the state corrections agency turn the defendants over to a federal prison.

The McMichaels armed themselves with guns and jumped in a truck to chase Arbery after spotting him running past their home outside the port city of Brunswick on Feb. 23, 2020. Bryan joined the pursuit in his own truck, helping cut off Arbery’s escape. He also recorded cellphone video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery at close range as Arbery threw punches and grabbed at the shotgun.

The McMichaels told police they suspected Arbery had been stealing from a nearby house under construction. But authorities later concluded he was unarmed and had committed no crimes. Arbery’s family has long insisted he was merely out jogging.

Still, more than two months passed before any charges were filed in Arbery’s death. The McMichaels and Bryan were arrested only after the graphic video of the shooting leaked online and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the case from local police.

During the February hate crimes trial, prosecutors fortified their case that Arbery’s killing was motivated by racism by showing the jury roughly two dozen text messages and social media posts in which Travis McMichael and Bryan used racist slurs and made disparaging comments about Black people. A woman testified to hearing an angry rant from Greg McMichael in 2015 in which he said: “All those Blacks are nothing but trouble.”

Defense attorneys for the three men argued the McMichaels and Bryan didn’t pursue Arbery because of his race but acted on an earnest — though erroneous — suspicion that Arbery had committed crimes in their neighborhood.

The father and son convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery were both given an additional sentence of life in prison Monday on federal hate crime charges.

A judge also required that Travis McMichael, 36, and Greg McMichael, 66, serve their sentences in state prison, not federal prison as had been requested by their attorneys.

Before handing down the sentence to Travis McMichael, who fatally shot Arbery in February 2020, US District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood said he had received a fair trial, “the kind of trial that Ahmaud Arbery did not receive before he was shot and killed.”

“You killed a man on Feb. 23, 2020. The events depicted in the video, they are recorded in the annals of this court and no doubt in your mind forever,” she said.

Amy Lee Copeland, Travis McMichael’s attorney, had asked the judge to allow her client to serve his sentence in federal prison, saying he had received “hundreds of threats” and that he would probably be killed in state custody. AJ Balbo, an attorney for Greg McMichael, told the judge he was medically “not fit” to serve his sentence in state prison.

Both Copeland and Balbo also said they were concerned about an investigation by the Department of Justice into inmate violence in the Georgia state prison system.

The prosecution and members of Arbery’s family asked that the McMichaels serve their sentences in state prison.

Travis McMichael, whose sentence is life plus 10 years, declined to speak before the judge announced her decision.

His father, whose life sentence includes an additional seven years, addressed Arbery’s family, telling them “the loss you’ve endured is beyond description. There’s no words for it.”

He added that he “never wanted any of this to happen. There was no malice in my heart, or my son’s heart, that day.”

The older McMichael also apologized to his son, saying he should have “never put him in that situation.”

A third man involved in the attack, William “Roddie” Bryan, 52, is also scheduled to be sentenced Monday.

Marcus Arbery, Ahmaud Arbery’s father, said ahead of the sentencing that “these three devils have broken my heart into pieces that cannot be found or repaired” and asked the court to give the stiffest sentence possible.

“You killed him because he was a Black man and you hate Black people,” he said.

Wanda Cooper-Jones, Ahmaud Arbery’s mother, said Travis McMichael “took my baby son.”

“I feel every shot that was fired every day,” she said.

The McMichaels and Bryan, who are all white, were found guilty in February on federal hate crime charges in the killing of Arbery, a Black man who was running in their neighborhood when the defendants confronted him in February 2020. The three men were convicted of all of the federal charges against them, including hate crimes, attempted kidnapping and the use of a firearm to commit a crime.

The federal case followed a state trial in November in which the men were convicted of murder and given life sentences. They have appealed their convictions in that case.

The federal hate crimes trial centered on the history of the three men and their racial bias, a motive that prosecutors in the state case largely avoided, even though Arbery’s killing gained national attention as the United States was reckoning with systemic institutional racism and bias in policing. .

The McMichaels and Bryan chased Arbery, 25, through their coastal Georgia neighborhood in trucks. The men, who spotted Arbery running by their homes, cornered him, and Travis McMichael fatally shot him with a shotgun. Bryan filmed the fatal encounter on his cellphone.

The men were arrested months after the shooting, following the release of Bryan’s phone video and growing national attention. The case was then taken over by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Arbery’s family and civil rights leaders have likened his death to a modern-day lynching.

The McMichaels attempted to plead guilty to the hate crime charges before trial, but the plea agreement was rejected by the judge after Arbery’s parents protested that the men would be able to serve their time in federal prison instead of state.

Federal prosecutors worked to establish that Arbery’s murder was driven by the men’s strong prejudices against Black people. Witnesses included an FBI analyst who went through the men’s social media history and neighbors and former co-workers of the McMichaels, who all testified that the father and son made troubling racist jokes, rants and statements and were open about their negative feelings toward Black people .

The defense said the messages and social media posts were taken out of context and that even though they had said troubling things, they insisted the men were not driven by their racial bias to pursue and kill Arbery.

This month, Greg McMichael’s attorney asked the judge not to impose a life sentence, although he said his client still deserves “a substantial period of incarceration,” The Associated Press reported. McMichael’s defense team also asked the judge for a transfer to federal prison, where he could avoid serving time for the murder in Georgia’s state prison system.

The family of Gabby Petito on Monday announced a wrongful death lawsuit against police in Moab, Utah, accusing the department of failing to properly investigate her domestic violence case and protect her.

The lawsuit, which seeks $50 million in damages, comes around the first anniversary of Petito’s death.

Petito was 22 when she was reported missing in September 2021. She was on a monthslong cross-country trip living in a van with her fiancé, Brian Laundrie.

Petito’s body was found in Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming on Sept. 19, 2021. It was determined she had been dead for at least three weeks and her death de ella was ruled a homicide by “manual strangulation.” Laundrie, who was named a person of interest in the case, was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Florida’s Carlton Reserve in October 2021.

Laundrie admitted to killing Petito in writings that were found after his death.

The notice of intent filing, which is required before suing government entities, was filed against the Moab City Police Department, its then-Chief Bret Edge, former–Assistant Chief Braydon Palmer, and Officers Eric Pratt and Daniel Robbins.

The Moab City Police Department did not immediately respond to an NBC News request for comment. A representative for the city of Moab said it does not comment on pending litigation.

The suit will center on a police encounter with Petito and Laundrie on Aug. 12, 2021, during their trip in Utah, shortly before her death.

That interaction made headlines following Petito’s disappearance, with body camera footage released showing Petito visibly distraught. According to the police report, Petito told officers she had slapped Laundrie and hit him first and that he had grabbed her face from her.

But ultimately, both Petito and Laundrie said that they did not want to press charges and that they loved each other.

An independent review, completed in January this year, found that the officers made several mistakes in handling that case—misclassifying it as more of a mental/emotional health “break” rather than domestic violence, and lacking details in their reports.

Their reports lacked details or documentation of any injury Petito suffered — and no one appeared to ask Laundrie about a scratch on Petito’s cheek, the independent review found.

In the new filing, lawyers for the Petito family argue that had police officers involved in that incident had proper training — teaching them to conduct a thorough lethality assessment and recognize signs of abuse — they’d know “Gabby was a victim of intimate partner violence ” and needed “immediate protection.”

In that incident, Laundrie and Petito were stopped in their van by officers who saw the vehicle speeding, crossing the double yellow line and hitting a curb near Arches National Park. A witness had called police, reporting they saw Laundrie “slapping” Petito.

Officer Daniels and Robbins interviewed Petito and Laundrie separately.

Robbins said he observed cuts on Gabby’s cheek and arm in his report, but court documents said that when she was asked about her fight with Laundrie, she “displayed the classic hallmarks of an abused partner” in trying to take the blame saying she hit him first and didn’t want to be separated from him.

Lawyers for the Petito family said a new photo, that hasn’t been released to the public yet, shows a close-up of Gabby’s face “where blood is smeared on her cheek and left eye.”

“The photo shows that Gabby’s face was grabbed across her nose and mouth, potentially restricting her airway,” the filing said.

When speaking with officers, Laundrie told Officer Robbins he pushed Gabby away to avoid being slapped, and admitted to taking her phone saying he didn’t have one. But later in that same interview he pulled out his own phone from his pocket, the document said.

“The officers did not question Brian about the inconsistencies in his version of events. Instead, they determined that Gabby was the primary aggressor and that Brian was a potential victim of domestic violence,” the document said.

Under Utah state law about domestic violence, the officers would have been required to send a report to prosecutors, but it was not done because the incident was mischaracterized as disorderly conduct, the independent review of the police interaction said.

The filing said that Officer Pratt called Assistant Chief Palmer for assistance on how the handle the situation and he was told to read the assault statute carefully and decide if the situation satisfied the law.

Pratt decided that Utah law only recognizes assault if the perpetrator intended to cause bodily injury — which the suit said is an incorrect interpretation. When Pratt questioned Gabby if she intended to cause Laundrie bodily injury when she hit him, she replied no.

Ultimately, police told the couple to separate for the night and no charges were filed.

James McConkie, one of the attorneys retained in the case, said, “While the full evidence has not yet been made public, when it is released, it will clearly show that if the officers had been properly trained and followed the law, Gabby would still be alive today.”

“Failure to follow the law can have a deadly consequence, as it did in this case,” he said.

He claimed the Moab City Police Department has had “chronic problems with protecting” domestic violence victims in failing to provide training and resources for officers.

“This is an institutional failure plain and simple,” he said.

The lawsuit is in addition to another suit filed by the Petito family in Florida against Laundrie’s parents, accusing them of hindering the search for their daughter, and alleging they knew Laundrie killed Petito.

Petito’s mother, Nicole Schmidt, wiped away tears at a press conference Monday.

“This is just bringing back a lot of pain,” she said. “We’re going to do whatever we can. That’s why we’re here.”

Schmidt recalled seeing that police body camera footage in question saying, “Watching it is very painful. I wanted to jump through the screen and rescue her.”

She shared a message to victims currently in abusive relationships, saying, “Just reach out when you can and get the help that you need… You can get out. Just do it safely. Reach out to someone that you can trust.”

Since May, authorities have now uncovered four sets of human remains at Lake Mead, as the country’s largest reservoir deals with extremely low water levels.

Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

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Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

Since May, authorities have now uncovered four sets of human remains at Lake Mead, as the country’s largest reservoir deals with extremely low water levels.

Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

More human remains were found at Lake Mead, according to officials Saturday.

Park rangers responded to reports of human skeletal remains uncovered at the lake’s Swim Beach — the fourth set found at the lake since May.

Park rangers and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s dive team set a perimeter to recover the remains, officials said. The investigation is ongoing and the county’s medical examiner is determining the cause of death.

Located roughly 20 miles east of Las Vegas, Lake Mead was formed by the Hoover Dam, and can hold more water than any other reservoir in the United States. It supplies water to millions of people.

Here’s a brief timeline of human remains found in Lake Mead in recent months:

May 1, 2022: Hemenway Harbor

Boaters found a body inside of a barrel after extremely low water levels exposed the bottom of the lake.

Authorities said the person’s belongings indicated they had died between the 1970s and 1980s. They believe the person’s death was a homicide that resulted from a gunshot wound.

The barrel containing the skeletal remains was found in an area close to the lake’s Hemenway Harbor, according to earlier reports from the Associated Press. That’s also close to Swim Beach.

May 7, 2022: Callville Bay

Two sisters found skeletal remains at Callville Bay. Clark County Coroner Melanie Rouse believes the remains were from a person between the approximate ages of 23 and 37, according to CNN.

Rouse said this set was more skeletal than the previous remains found, which had organ tissue, CNN also reported.

The cause of death in this case remains unknown.

July 25, 2022: Swim Beach

Reports emerged about another set of remains found at Swim Beach, according to authorities. The investigation is still ongoing and the cause of death has not been identified.

A worsening drought

The newest discovery of human remains found in the lake comes as the reservoir suffers from an ongoing 22-year-long drought.

Lake Mead has hit its lowest water levels since 1937 and is filled to 27% of capacity, according to NASA.

Las Vegas began pumping for its water supply from deeper in the lake because of how depleted the reservoir became, the Associated Press reported in May.

These droughts — exacerbated by climate change — continue to disrupt the West. The area is dealing with its driest period in at least 1,200 years.

Nevada, Arizona and California, along with the federal government, reached a $200 million deal to try to keep more water in Lake Mead this year and next, according to Alex Hager from Colorado’s KUNC member station.