Ahmaud Arbery’s mom leaves courtroom as defense tries to ‘malign’ his character: attorney

The mother of Ahmaud Arbery abruptly walked out of a Georgia courtroom Thursday after a defense attorney began questioning her son’s actions and even his mental health prior to the caught-on-tape shooting that ended his life in February.

Attorney S. Lee Merritt, who’s representing the Arbery family, said Wanda Cooper-Jones left the Glynn County court “exhausted by the character assassination of her son."

“Mr. Arbery’s mental health, his kindergarten records, his high school basketball records, his football stats had nothing to do with this trial and was inappropriate in this case," Merritt told reporters outside the courthouse.

During a probable cause hearing Thursday, defense attorneys asked a state investigator about a claim by William “Roddie” Bryan, the co-defendant who filmed the Feb. 23 shooting, that Arbery tried to get into his truck during the pursuit that ended with the young man’s killing.

Richard Dial, the lead Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent in the case, immediately refuted that allegation, saying Arbery was likely trying to get away.

Bryan, 50, is accused of ambushing and even hitting Arbery with his vehicle so father and son Gregory and Travis McMichael could kill him.

At another point in the hearing, an attorney for the younger McMichael forced Dial to publicly discuss Arbery’s “mental history.” The 25-year-old victim, who was unarmed at the time of the shooting, was once diagnosed with a mental illness that caused hallucinations, Dial told the court.

“Defense attorneys are now attempting to malign the character of #AhmaudArbery by pursuing testimony about a mental health concern Ahmaud previously received treatment for,” Merritt wrote in one of several tweets posted during the hearing.

“It is a common tactic of white supremacy to criminalize illness and trauma in the black community,” he added.

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The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating the shooting as a possible hate crime. The three suspects charged in the case are white and Arbery was black.

Dial also testified Thursday that Bryan reported hearing Travis McMichael, the one who fired the three shots that killed Arbery, uttering a racist slur over the victim’s dead body before police arrived at the scene.

The McMichaels, who avoided arrest for over two months, told police at the time they suspected Arbery was behind a series of burglaries in the area and decided to carry out a citizens’ arrest when the shooting occurred.