On February 23, 2020, Ahmaud Arbery was in the Satilla Shores neighborhood near Brunswick, Georgia when Gregory and Travis McMichael pulled their truck up to a jogging Arbery. The men confronted him about recent trespassing and burglary incidents in the neighborhood and shot and killed him in the street. 

A third man, William “Roddie” Bryan trailed the men in his vehicle and recorded the shooting of Arbery. The video spread across the internet in April, leading to an investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation not only into the shooting, but how prosecutors Tom Durden and Jackie Johnson in southeast Georgia handled the case.

Both McMichaels and Bryan were charged with murder in the case, which sparked nationwide outrage and a series of marches and demands for justice and new hate crime legislation in Georgia. 

On November 24, 2021, a jury found all three men guilty of murder and other charges. Judge Timothy Walmsley sentenced the McMichaels to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Bryan was given life with the possibility of parole.

On Feb. 22, 2022, nearly two years to the day after Arbery's murder, a federal jury found all three men guilty of federal hate crimes.