Jay-Z, Alicia Keys and Meek Mill call for "urgent attention" in Ahmaud Arbery killing
Jay-Z, Alicia Keys and Meek Mill are amongst the names calling for “urgent attention” in the murder of Ahmaud Arbery.
The 25-year-old was shot and killed on February 23 as he went jogging in Brunswick, Georgia. Two men – Gregory McMichael and son Travis – were arrested and charged with Arbery’s murder on May 7, after outrage spread online and in the US media that no action was seen to be taken in the case.
The McMichaels claimed to police that they chased and shot Artery because they thought he was a burglar.
Now, Jay-Z’s Roc Nation have sent an open letter to Georgia governor Brian Kemp, the state’s attorney general Christopher Carr, and the district attorney Tom Durden “calling for justice to be served.”
Open letter to Georgia elected officials appearing in the Atlantic Journal-Constitution today, calling for justice to be served in the case of Ahmaud Arbery's murder. Convict his killers and show the world that hate and fear will lose. #JusticeforAhmaud #iRunWithMaud pic.twitter.com/w0nuXthGEc
— Roc Nation (@RocNation) May 10, 2020
“The world is now familiar with the story of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old African-American man who, while out jogging in Brunswick, Glynn County, GA, was hunted down and shot to death by two white men, Gregory and Travis McMichael,” the letter began. “Their arrest yesterday on charges of murder and aggravated assault – more than two months after Ahmaud’s death – was a positive first step on the long road toward justice. But it only strengthens our resolve to see that justice is eventually served.”
It continued to state “the facts here are not in doubt” due to the presence of a video of the murder that has been widely spread online. “He was unarmed and innocent and the victim of a hate crime,” the letter read, urging Georgia’s authorities to “ensure that a fair trial is conducted” and “charge William Bryan as an armed accomplice to the crime.”
The group also demanded Durden be removed from the case to avoid a conflict of interest due to Gregory McMichael being a former police officer, and requested a special prosecutor be appointed “to preserve the rule of law and the pursuit of justice”.
“If you take those necessary actions, you will send a message to the people that want to drag Georgia back to a time when African-Americans were killed merely for voting: hate and fear will lose,” they wrote. “Ahmaud was a loving son, a brother and a positive role model in the community. He was a human being. He was also African-American which, sadly, means that he was a target. Still.
“We will continue to say his name and will be persistent in our calls for justice until it is served. Urgent attention is needed to this matter.”
You can read the letter in full above. It was signed by Jay-Z, Keys, Mill, Yo Gotti, attorneys Lee Merrit and Benjamin L. Crump, plus the collective Team Roc and Roc Nation, and appeared in the Atlantic Journal-Constitution today (May 10).
Meanwhile, Jay-Z and Mill’s justice reform organisation recently announced plans to send 100,000 face masks to prisons to help combat the coronavirus pandemic. REFORM Alliance stepped in to send the masks to correctional facilities across the US in the wake of shortages of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in the COVID-19 crisis.
