There’s a new push in Georgia for a state hate crime law after the killing of Ahmaud Arbery an unarmed black man pursued by two white men and shot dead while jogging through a Brunswick neighborhood on February 23. Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son Travis, 34, who told police they thought Arbery was a burglary suspect, were charged with Arbery’s murder 74 days after his death. The killing, captured on a disturbing video, and the delay in the arrests, drew a national outcry. Many have said Arbery was targeted because of his race, but Georgia is one of four states with no hate crime statutes, which generally allow for harsher sentencing for perpetrators of crimes ruled by a court to be bias-motivated. South Carolina, Wyoming and Arkansas also remain without hate crime laws, and some advocates also include Indiana on the list, calling a law passed in that state last year “uniquely and problematically broad.”…. Read more here!
There’s a new push in Georgia for a state hate crime law after the killing of Ahmaud Arbery an unarmed black man pursued by two white men and shot dead while jogging through a Brunswick neighborhood on February 23. Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son Travis, 34, who told police they thought Arbery was a burglary suspect, were charged with Arbery’s murder 74 days after his death. The killing, captured on a disturbing video, and the delay in the arrests, drew a national outcry. Many have said Arbery was targeted because of his race, but Georgia is one of four states with no hate crime statutes, which generally allow for harsher sentencing for perpetrators of crimes ruled by a court to be bias-motivated. South Carolina, Wyoming and Arkansas also remain without hate crime laws, and some advocates also include Indiana on the list, calling a law passed in that state last year “uniquely and problematically broad.”…. Read more here!
