Men face sentencing for hate crimes in Ahmaud Arbery’s death

ATLANTA, Ga. (CBS46) - The three men responsible for murdering Ahmaud Arbery after chasing him in a residential community in Georgia in February 2020, is set to be sentenced Monday morning for their federal hate crime convictions.

Travis McMichael, his father Greg McMichael, and their neighbor William Bryan is already serving time for Arbery’s murder.

Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper, continues to fight for justice in this case and make sure that her son’s murder is not forgotten.

“I had to keep going to get justice for Ahmaud,” said his mother Wanda Cooper. “The day I laid Ahmaud to rest, I made a promise we would give him justice. It’s been a struggle, it’s been a fight but we finally got some justice.”

Arbery was 25 years old when he was followed while jogging in a Brunswick neighborhood.

Travis McMichael, the man who fatally shot Arbery, recently told police he feared that he would be killed in state prison by fellow inmates.

That’s according to a legal filing by McMichael’s defense attorney that asks a judge to keep McMichael in federal custody when he’s sentenced Monday on a hate crime conviction.

Attorney Amy Lee Copeland wrote that McMichael has received hundreds of death threats since he killed Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, in February 2020.

She says McMichael worries “he will promptly be killed” in a Georgia prison system that the Justice Department is investigating for violence between inmates.

In February, Rep. Sandra Scott from Clayton County introduced the legislation in the Georgia House to make Feb. 23 Ahmaud Arbery Day. The date was chosen because it is the same day that Ahmaud Arbery was killed in 2020.

Travis McMichael and his father, Gregory McMichael, requested acquittal of their federal hate crimes convictions related to the murder of Arbery, according to CNN.