Brunswick lawyer Alan Tucker gave the video to WGIG, a local radio station
A leaked video of Ahmaud Arbery's murder that was published by a Georgia radio station is what led to his killers' arrests, and it was released by an attorney who thought the footage might actually have helped them.
Travis McMichael, Gregory McMichael and William 'Roddy' Bryan Jr. were all convicted of murdering Arbery this week in a Georgia courtroom. They are awaiting sentencing and face life behind bars.
The trio were arrested in May 2020 - nearly three months after they chased Arbery down the street.
The arrests came after a video of the killing was posted online by WGIG, a local radio station in Brunswick, which got the video from Alan Tucker, a local defense attorney who thought that it releasing it would somehow soothe tensions in the community, where he said rumors about the killing were spreading.
The video had been taken by William Roddy Bryan and the men thought it showed them to be innocent of murder.
Ironically, it is what led to their arrests three months after the killing.
The shooting was on February 23, 2020.
It was reported to the police, but a first prosecutor recused herself and then a second did the same - but only after deciding not to press charges.
It was only when the video, after being posted on the radio station's website and then shared on social media, gained national and international attention that the killers were charged.
The video went online on May 5. On May 7, Travis and Gregory McMichael were arrested. Bryan Jr. was arrested on May 21.
Tucker hasn't commented since the verdict. Last year, he told The New York Times why he wanted the footage to be made public.
'It wasn’t two men with a Confederate flag in the back of a truck going down the road and shooting a jogger in the back.
The graphic video was taken by William Roddy Bryan Jr. from a car following Travis and Gregory McMichael's vehicle. It spread like wildfire on social media
'It got the truth out there as to what you could see.
'My purpose was not to exonerate them or convict them,' he told The New York Times.
He later told News4Jax: 'People had the right to know.'
The case went through the hands of three prosecutors, then the Georgia Bureau of Investigations until eventually, the men were charged.
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