GLYNN COUNTY, Ga. – Viral video of the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery was first leaked to the press at the request of the dad now accused of his murder. Reportedly, he thought it would make him and his son look better.
The ironic shocker — that it was former police officer Gregory McMichael who leaked the very video that would expose the Arbery shooting to the world, leading to father-son murder charges — was reported Friday by WSB-TV.
The video shows McMichael standing in the back of a pickup truck while Travis, his son, confronts Arbery. The fight leads to a fatal shooting with a shotgun, which was in the possession of Travis.
It’s believed that McMichael leaked the video to a radio station two months after the shooting because he thought it would ease rising racial tensions in the South Georgia community of Satilla Shores, WSB-TV reported.
The stunning plot twist was revealed Friday by Alan Tucker, a Brunswick attorney who had informally consulted with the suspects, and who was previously known to have been the source of the video, reported the New York Post.
Tucker told WSBS-TV that leaking the video, which had been shot from a second vehicle by a friend of the father and son, was Gregory McMichael’s idea.
“I didn’t want the neighborhood to become a Ferguson,” Tucker said.
Tucker said Gregory McMichael brought the video and others to his office for assistance in getting the video downloaded for delivery to a talk show host on a Brunswick radio station.
Tucker says McMichael came to him as a friend and not as an attorney. He did not want to comment publicly on the charges against either McMichael.
