Greg McMichael was all over that crime scene.

Immediately after the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery in the street in Glynn County Georgia by Gregory Michael and his son Travis McMichael, Gregory McMichael (a former police investigator) took over the crime scene investigation.  There is little evidence that the police officers who arrived at the scene did much besides follow Gregory McMichael’s suggestions.

They allowed him to take over the situation.

For example, G. McMichael was not separated from the other men involved in the crime.  He repeatedly told his son (who pulled the trigger) “You had to do it.  You had to do it.”  In other words, say this is self defense, boy.

Police arrived within minutes of the shooting, but Greg McMichael and Travis Michael and the buddy in the chase, William Bryan, were allowed to roam around the crime scene, talk to each other and to other people, including witnesses like Diego Perez.  Their trucks were never searched.  The trucks they had used to chase down Arbery and hem him in were never even made part of the crime scene.

Even though police were on the scene, Gregory McMichael can be seen taking to his son, William Bryan and Diego Perez a witness to the crime.  Even when an officer was trying to interview Greg McMichael, an unidentified white male just strolled up and started talking to McMichael.  When the prosecutor asked the Glynn County Police (GCP) officer why he had allowed this, he said: “I don’t have a good answer for that.”

When the same officer was talking to someone from the Coroner’s office, Greg McMichael walked up and interrupted and started telling her what, in his version, happened.  The officer did not stop this.

No.  The officer did not have a good answer for why he allowed  McMichael to talk to other people and come up and interrupt a conversation the officer was trying to have with the coroner.  And, the GCP still don’t have a good answer for why they failed to secure the crime scene, allowed the assailants to leave the scene, change clothes and eventually go home.

In the aftermath of an event in which three men chased down a young black man because they thought he might have stolen something, thought he might have hurt somebody, thought he was up to no good, thought he might be on drugs, the GCP made no arrests, detained none of the men involved.  They interviewed them and sent them home.

When Greg McMichael was being interviewed by the GCP he directed them about what to do.  He told them they needed to go out and canvas the neighborhood because Arbery might have gone in somebody’s house.  Gregory McMichaels says in his statement: “he might have gone in somebody’s house.”  Officers, instructed by a man who was involved in the crime, dutifully went out and canvassed the neighborhood to see who else thought Arbery had committed a crime.  In the meantime, Gregory McMichael and his son Travis, went home. 

They stayed at home and would never have been prosecuted if the GBI hadn’t taken over the case.