The Georgia prosecutors who first handled the fatal shooting of a black man are under investigation for their conduct in the case.
Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr has asked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and federal authorities to investigate how local prosecutors handled the killing of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery.
Arbery was pursued by a white father and son before being shot on a residential street just outside the port city of Brunswick.
His death has fueled a national outcry and questions about whether the slaying was racially motivated.
Arbery was fatally shot Feb. 23 by the men who told police they chased him because they believed he matched the appearance of a burglary suspect caught on surveillance video.
Surveillance footage from that afternoon shows a person – believed to be Arbery – walking into and around a house. Within minutes, a person runs out of the house and down the street. Later, a police car drives by.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution provided the video to The Associated Press.
Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper Jones, has said she thinks her son, a former high school football player, was just jogging in the neighborhood before he was killed.
On Monday, Carr appointed a black district attorney from the Atlanta area Monday to take over the case. She is the third outside prosecutor on the case.
Cobb County District Attorney Joyette M. Holmes took over the case from prosecutor Tom Durden, who the state’s attorney general said asked to be replaced by a prosecutor with a large staff.
Holmes is based in metro Atlanta, more than 300 miles (480 kilometers) from the coastal Georgia community in Glynn County where the shooting happened.
According to the Georgia Prosecuting Attorneys Council, Holmes is one of only seven black district attorneys in the state.
Federal prosecutors are also considering hate crimes charges, the Justice Department said, which would allow for a separate case in federal court.
Video leaked last week shows a black man running at a jogging pace. A truck is stopped in the road ahead of him, with one white man standing in the pickup’s bed and another beside the open driver’s side door.
The running man attempts to pass the pickup on the passenger side, moving briefly outside the camera’s view. A gunshot sounds, and the video shows the running man grappling with a man over what appears to be a shotgun or rifle. A second shot can be heard, and the running man can be seen punching the other man. A third shot is fired at point-blank range. The running man staggers a few feet and falls face down.
Gregory McMichael and his son, Travis McMichael, were arrested last week, more than two months later, after video of the shooting appeared online and provoked outrage.
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