Defendant: Ahmaud Arbery 'trapped like a rat' before slaying

One of the three white men charged in the death of Ahmaud Arbery told police they had the 25-year-old Black man "trapped like a rat" before he was fatally shot.

Glynn County police Sgt. Roderic Nohilly testified Wednesday that defendant Greg McMichael made the statement a few hours after the Feb. 2020 slaying.

Nohilly said Greg McMichael told him Arbery "wasn’t out for no Sunday jog. He was getting the hell out of there.”

He told Nohilly he recognized Arbery because he had been recorded by security cameras a few times inside a neighboring home under construction. Greg McMichael said they gave chase to try to stop Arbery from escaping the subdivision.

“He was trapped like a rat,” Greg McMichael said, according to a transcript of their recorded interview Nohilly read in court. "I think he was wanting to flee and he realized that something, you know, he was not going to get away.”

Caption

Greg McMichael, center, sits with his attorney Laura Hogue, left, before the start of his trial in the Glynn County Courthouse, Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2021, in Brunswick, Ga.

Credit: Pool photo

In questioning on the witness stand Wednesday, Nohilly pushed back as one of Greg McMichael's attorneys asked if raising a gun would be an appropriate response to a fleeing suspect who refused verbal commands to stop.

“You’ll sometimes draw your weapon, won’t you?” attorney Franklin Hogue asked.

Nohilly replied: "I don’t just pull my gun.”

Greg Michael and his adult son, Travis McMichael, are standing trial on murder charges along with a neighbor, William "Roddie" Bryan.

Greg McMichael says he and his son suspected Arbery was a burglar when they saw him running in their neighborhood on a Sunday afternoon. They armed themselves with guns and chased him in a pickup truck. Bryan joined the chase and took cellphone video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery.