Man who shot Ahmaud Arbery sentenced to life in federal hate crime

The white man who shotAhmaud Arbery dead after chasing a 25-year-old black man in his Georgia neighborhood was sentenced to life in prison Monday for committing a federal hate crime.

Travis McMichael was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood in the port city of Brunswick. McMichael was sentenced to life without parole in a Georgia court earlier this year for the Arbery murder.

Wood said McMichael got a fair trial.

The court said it was the kind of trial that Ahmad Arbery did not receive before he was shot," the judge said.

sentencing that followed, she spoke to Arbery's family. His mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, feels every shot directed at her son every day:

"It's so hard that he was killed without committing a crime." It's unfair, it's unfair, it's unfair," she said.

McMichael refused to speak in court, but his attorney, Amy Lee Copeland, said her client had never been convicted prior to the Arbery murder and that the United States She said Derek Chauvin, the police officer who killed George Floyd in Minneapolis, was not charged, but was sentenced to 21 years in prison for violating Floyd's civil rights. and said the lighter sentence was more in line with what similarly indicted defendants received in other cases, which targeted Floyd because of his race.

McMichael was one of his three defendants convicted of federal hate crime charges in February. His father, Greg McMichael, and neighbor William "Rody" Bryan had a sentencing hearing scheduled for late Monday. After driving past his home, McMichael armed himself with a gun and used a pickup truck to pursue Arbery. Shotgun as Arbery throws punches and grabs weapon.

Arbery was a robber. Investigators determined that he was unarmed and had committed no crime.

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Murder of Arbery became part of the larger public reckoning about the racial injustice and murder of unarmed black people, including Floyd and Breonna Taylor, in Kentucky. Those two of his cases also resulted in the Department of Justice filing charges with the federal government.

"The evidence we presented at the trial proved what so many people felt in their hearts when they saw the video of Amoudo's tragic and needless death. If he was white, none of this would have happened," said prosecutor Christopher Pelas Travis McMichael before sentencing.

Greg McMichael and Brian , facing possible life in prison after a jury found him guilty of a federal hate crime in February, concluding that he violated Arbery's civil rights and targeted him because of his race. All three men were also found guilty of attempted kidnapping, and McMichaels faces additional penalties for committing a violent crime using a firearm.

State Superior Court A judge sentenced all three men to life imprisonment for Arbery's murder in January.

Read more: Ahmaud Arbery's verdict has been reached. what happens next

All three defendants were sent to coastal Glynn County, which is under the control of the U.S. Marshals, while awaiting sentencing after the federal government convicted them in January. remains imprisoned.

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

In court filings last week, both Travis and Greg McMichael were sent to a federal prison instead of a judge. to be safe in Georgia's prison system, which is the subject of a U.S. Department of Justice investigation focused on inmate violence.

Copeland said at a Travis McMichael hearing on Monday that her client had received hundreds of threats that he would be killed as soon as he arrived at the state prison, and that his photo was illegal.

"I am honored that my client is effectively facing the death penalty at the back door.

Arbery's Family McMichael is serving time in state prison, where his father, Marcus Arbery Sr., said Travis McMichael had no mercy on his son and deserved to "rot" in state prison.