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Reporting by both the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The Guardian is shining a light on the past behavior of the Glynn County Police Department where Gregory McMichael was once employed.
The AJC was first to report that Ahmaud Arbery had an interaction with Glynn County PD on Nov 7, 2017. The paper reports that a police officer spotted Arbery sitting alone in his 2001 gold Toyota Camry in Townsend Park and asked what he was doing. In the report, Arbery told the officer he was rapping alone in his car.
READ MORE: Murder suspect leaked Ahmaud Arbery shooting video to clear up neighborhood rumors
The Guardian obtained a copy of a bodycam video of the interaction.
In the video, an officer questions Arbery saying that he was in a park known for drug activity.
Arbery told the officer that he didn’t have drugs and refused to allow the officer to search his vehicle. “You’re bothering me for nothing,” Arbery said to officer Michael Kanago, according to the body camera footage. After Kanago told him he was looking for criminal activity, Arbery said “criminal activity? I’m in a fu**ing park. I work.”
A second officer arrived on the scene and screamed at Arbery to take his hands out of his pocket. He complied.
Although he was complying with their commands, the second officer, David Haney discharged his taser at Arbery. The device malfunctioned. Later Haney tries to justify his actions to another officer, saying that he moved without checking with his partner.
Had Haney checked, he would have known that his partner had already searched Arbery for weapons … and he had none.
In the video, the now-deceased Arbery is seen sitting on the ground, “I get one day off a week … I’m up early in the morning trying to chill,” he told the officers as he sat on the ground. “I’m just so aggravated because I work hard, six days a week.”
READ MORE: Multiple people trespassed at home Ahmaud Arbery visited, videos show
The incident eventually ends with police allowing Arbery to leave, but forbidding him from driving his car because his driver’s license is suspended.
In a joint statement to The Guardian, lawyers working for the Arbery family described the video as a clear depiction of “a situation where Ahmaud was harassed by Glynn County police officers.”
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