Ahmaud Arbery Was Shot Twice in the Chest, Autopsy Shows

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Ahmaud Arbery died after being shot twice in the chest by one of the two white men who chased him while he was out for a jog, according to Arbery’s autopsy report, which was released Monday night.

The autopsy, conducted by the Glynn County, Georgia, coroner the day after Arbery’s death on February 23, was released by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which is investigating the killing. The autopsy showed the young black man was shot twice in the chest at close range, and a third shot grazed his right wrist, according to WSB-TV in Atlanta.

“This 25-year-old died of multiple gunshot wounds sustained during a struggle for the shotgun,” the coroner wrote, according to WSB-TV.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation arrested retired law enforcement official George McMichael and his 34-year-old son Travis McMichael on Thursday night, after the leaked video footage of Arbery’s struggle with Travis McMichael and the final moments of his life went viral. In a police report filed shortly after Arbery’s killing, George McMichael claimed that there had been several break-ins in the area and that Arbery had been “caught on surveillance video.”

Previously, local prosecutors had declined to pursue charges against the McMichaels or had stepped away from the case due to conflicts of interest. On Monday, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr appointed Cobb County district attorney Joyette Holmes as the lead prosecutor in the case, the fourth so far.

Also on Monday, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it was investigating whether federal hate crime charges should be filed in the case. Georgia is one of four states in the country that doesn’t have a hate crimes statute.

“We are assessing all of the evidence to determine whether federal hate crimes charges are appropriate,” DOJ spokesperson Kerri Kupec said in a statement. “We will continue to assess all information, and we will take any appropriate action that is warranted by the facts and the law.”

Cover: A large group of protesters, bound together with yellow caution tape, marched on New York's Police Headquarters decrying police brutality against African-Americans following the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, 11 May 2020, in New York. (Photo by B.A. Van Sise/NurPhoto via AP)