welcome back, everyone. a jury in the u.s. state of georgia has found all three white men who killed ahmaud arbery guilty of a federal hate crime. prosecutors say racism played a key role when the men chased arbery down two years ago before shooting him. cnn s ryan young was there as the verdict came in. reporter: holding their hands high outside a georgia courthouse, another victory for the family of ahmaud arbery two years after the murder. i knew we would get a victory on the state level and on the federal level. i give all glory to god and we got justice for ahmaud. reporter: a jury found travis mcmichael, his father and
the closing arguments, the prosecution is trying to prove these defendants went after, chased arbery, killed him because he was black, and were it not for his race, this would not have happened. that is the essence of the hate crimes charged that these defendants face. this is not about the murder as it was in the state case. this is about motivation and why they did this. and also these are very serious charges. the first two counts, the hate crimes charges, essentially, carry a potential life in prison sentence with them if convicted. so, again, the jury of 12, 8 white jurors, 3 black jurors, one hispanic juror, have begun again and they are into their fourth hour of deliberations. it would be fascinating if they came to a decision so quickly. but i want to pick up on what ron just said about the whole idea of motivation because that s exactly why hate crimes can be notoriously hard to prove.
those who prayed. most of all, the ones who prayed. reporter: the jury made up of nine white women, two white men, and one black man deliberated for more than 11 hours after eight days of testimony from 23 witnesses. earlier today before reaching the verdicts, the jury asked to see the two video clips-let one of them enhanced from the deadly february 2020 shooting. they also asked to hear the 9-1-1 call that gregory mcmichael made the day arbery was shot and killed. i am out here. there is a black male running down the street. reporter: during the trial, the three defendants had claimed they were trying too make a citizen s arrest of arbery the day they jumped into a truck, chased arbery, and killed him. they said they suspected arbery had burglarized a nearby home construction site referring to video of arbery wandering inside that home months before being killed. we wanted to stop him for the police to detain him. reporter: but the prosecution
the day arbery was shot and killed. right here and there is a black male running down the street. reporter: during the trial the three defendants had claimed had they were trying to make a citizen s arrest the day they jumped in to a truck, chased arbery and killed him. they said that they suspected arbery had burglarized a construction site referring to video of him with an dearing inside the home months before being killed. they wanted to stop him for the police to detain him. reporter: but the prosecution said that arbery was just out for a jog. he hadn t committed a crime and wasn t armed. everybody had a gun except ahmaud arbery. reporter: and now all three face sentence of up to life in prison for their actions. the verdict today was a verdict based on the facts. based on the evidence. and that was our goal was to bring that to that jury so that they could do the right thing. qmuez, i know him as quez, h
Transcripts for MSNBC Alex Witt Reports 20211106 16:26:15 archive.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from archive.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.