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Suspects in Ahmaud Arbery's death plead not guilty - L.A. Focus Newspaper

A third man charged in Arbury's death, William Bryan, also pleaded not guilty to all charges against him.

All three appeared in the Glynn County, Georgia, court via video conference.

Arbery was jogging outside Brunswick, Georgia, in February when Gregory McMichael and his son Travis, who are White, chased him, authorities said. Arbery and Travis McMichael struggled over the latter's shotgun and Arbery was shot three times. Gregory McMichael told police Arbery attacked his son, a police report says.

The killing sparked outrage after a disturbing video of the shooting emerged online on May 5. "Jogging while black" became the latest example of the many perils visited on African Americans.

Bryan recorded the cell phone video of Arbery's final moments.

During Friday's hearing, Arbery's mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, asked a judge to deny bond for Bryan. "I am asking this court to say no. He can not go home. He denied my son to go home," Cooper-Jones told the court.

"My son ran away. He ran, he ran. My son actually ran around him and my son actually ran for his life. But William Bryan did not allow my son to return home," Cooper-Jones said during a victim impact statement.

Arbery's father, Marcus Arbery, said in a statement read by a prosecutor that he "suffered the deepest loss a family can endure when the McMichaels and Bryan acted as judge, jury and executioner."

Bryan's son, Preston Bryan, argued for his father to be released on bond and told the judge his father doesn't pose any risk to the public.

The hearing continued into the afternoon.

The McMichaels and Bryan were indicted by a grand jury last month.

Travis McMichael, Greg McMichael and Bryan were indicted on malice and felony murder charges in Arbery's death, prosecutors said.

The charges also include aggravated assault, false imprisonment and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment, according to the indictment.

Gregory McMichael told officers that he thought Arbery looked like a person suspected in a series of recent break-ins in the area, according to a police report.

No string of break-ins was reported in the more than seven weeks before Arbery's death, and there was only a burglary report after a gun was stolen from an unlocked vehicle in front of the McMichaels' home, police said.

Investigators said they believed Bryan tried to help the McMichaels by using his vehicle to "confine and detain" Arbery multiple times in the minutes leading to Arbery's death, an arrest warrant says.

Georgia Bureau of Investigation Assistant Special Agent in Charge Richard Dial testified at a preliminary hearing in June that Bryan hit Arbury with his truck during the incident.

Bryan told police that at one point he thought Arbery was trying to enter his truck, Dial said, adding that he didn't know whether that was true but he felt Arbery was trying to escape.

Investigators found a swipe from a palm print on the rear door of Bryan's truck, cotton fibers near the tr

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