WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:05.000 JUDY WOODRUFF: One of three men on trial for fatally shooting Ahmaud Arbery, who was Black, 00:05.200 --> 00:07.680 took the stand today in his own defense. 00:07.680 --> 00:12.680 Travis McMichael, who is white, testified a day after the prosecution rested in a 00:12.720 --> 00:17.600 murder trial that is racially charged and is being closely watched around the country. 00:17.600 --> 00:18.960 William Brangham has the latest. 00:18.960 --> 00:23.960 WILLIAM BRANGHAM: McMichael is being charged with murder and other crimes, along with two other men. 00:24.720 --> 00:29.720 The accused say they were attempting a citizen's arrest on Arbery, suspecting him of robbing a 00:30.720 --> 00:35.720 nearby house. Prosecutors allege the men illegally chased down and killed Arbery. 00:36.080 --> 00:39.680 On the stand today, McMichael described the moment he shot Arbery, 00:39.680 --> 00:41.760 claiming it was done in self-defense: 00:41.760 --> 00:43.938 TRAVIS MCMICHAEL, Defendant: I shot him. 00:43.938 --> 00:45.120 JASON SHEFFIELD, Attorney For Travis McMichael: Why? 00:45.120 --> 00:50.120 TRAVIS MCMICHAEL: He had my gun. He struck me. It was obvious that he was -- 00:51.840 --> 00:56.840 it was obvious that he was attacking me, that if he would have gotten the shotgun from me, 00:56.880 --> 01:00.080 then it was -- this is a life-or-death situation. 01:00.640 --> 01:04.000 And I'm going to have to stop him from doing this. So I shot. 01:04.000 --> 01:09.000 WILLIAM BRANGHAM: We should say the prosecution has disputed that characterization of the events. 01:09.120 --> 01:12.960 Joining me now is Margaret Coker. She's editor in chief of The Current, 01:12.960 --> 01:17.040 which is a nonprofit nonpartisan news organization in Southeastern 01:17.040 --> 01:21.920 Georgia. She has been covering the trial in Brunswick since it started last month. 01:21.920 --> 01:24.320 Margaret Coker, great to have you on the "NewsHour." 01:24.320 --> 01:29.200 So, we just heard there from Travis McMichael. Can you tell us a little bit more about what he 01:29.200 --> 01:33.520 is claiming on the witness stand that happened in this fatal moment? 01:33.520 --> 01:35.440 MARGARET COKER, Editor in Chief, The Current: Yes. 01:35.440 --> 01:39.760 Travis McMichael is, of course, the younger of the two McMichaels. He and 01:39.760 --> 01:43.520 his father are the co-defendants, along with neighbor, William "Roddie" Bryan. 01:44.960 --> 01:49.440 The actions that they took that day are now under the microscope. 01:50.080 --> 01:52.960 Travis McMichael has always within straightforward, saying that he killed 01:52.960 --> 01:57.960 Ahmaud Arbery. The jury is going to decide that was murder or whether that was self-defense. 01:58.080 --> 02:02.800 And Travis McMichael took the stand today to try, as he said, put things in his own 02:02.800 --> 02:07.280 words and his own context, what was going through his mind when he decided to grab 02:07.280 --> 02:12.080 his gun along with his father and chase Ahmaud Arbery through their mostly white 02:12.080 --> 02:16.640 neighborhood on the outskirts of Brunswick in this small corner of Southeast Georgia. 02:17.200 --> 02:22.200 Now, what Travis is trying to do is make himself more human. He is a person that 02:23.040 --> 02:27.840 has been characterized by the special agents who decided to finally arrest him 02:27.840 --> 02:32.840 and his father and their co-defendants, he's been depicted as someone who is a white racist, 02:33.200 --> 02:38.200 a white supremacist, someone who had a Confederate Flag vanity license plate, someone who 02:38.880 --> 02:43.760 might have actually used the N-word when he stood over Ahmaud Arbery after he shot him. 02:44.400 --> 02:48.800 These are the kinds of depictions that his defense lawyers say are nonsense, 02:48.800 --> 02:53.800 that his family say is nonsense. And so he's been trying to put a human face on the events 02:54.880 --> 02:57.520 of that tragic day, February 23, 2020. 02:57.520 --> 03:02.480 WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The defense also argued this week that -- they moved for a mistrial, 03:02.480 --> 03:05.520 and they also said that the -- all the charges should be dropped. 03:05.520 --> 03:08.000 What is the basis on which they're making that argument? 03:08.000 --> 03:13.000 MARGARET COKER: They say clearly that nothing illegal happened that day. They have always 03:13.520 --> 03:18.080 put forward that their clients have done nothing wrong, that they acted both within Georgia law, 03:18.080 --> 03:23.080 which at the time allowed for a citizen's arrest, and also that they acted in self-defense. 03:23.920 --> 03:27.360 They say the prosecution hasn't hit that bar, even 03:28.880 --> 03:31.920 to show that those crimes were committed. The judge, of course, 03:31.920 --> 03:36.400 has denied all of those motions. And so here we have the defendants finally taking the stand. 03:36.400 --> 03:40.800 WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And what do you make of -- the prosecution rested its case earlier this week. 03:40.800 --> 03:45.800 What do you make of the case? Have they, in your judgment, hit the bar for a murder conviction? 03:45.840 --> 03:50.840 MARGARET COKER: Yes, Georgia has a different murder statute than other states. There is no 03:53.040 --> 03:58.040 different degrees of murder here. It's felony murder or malice murder or manslaughter. 03:59.360 --> 04:03.920 And so the prosecution doesn't have to prove intent. She doesn't have to prove that someone was 04:03.920 --> 04:08.920 a racist when they chased Ahmaud Arbery down the street. All she has to prove is that, in the heat 04:10.000 --> 04:15.000 of the moment, that there were bad assumptions made, that there were two different -- two 04:15.360 --> 04:20.160 different sets of opinions happening on the street that day, and they willfully killed someone. 04:20.160 --> 04:25.120 The citizen's arrest law that's been repealed, that was -- there's very clear language that 04:25.680 --> 04:29.680 people trying to detain a person had to have seen a felony happen 04:29.680 --> 04:34.680 or have reasonable suspicion that that happened. Both of the McMichaels and Bryan have said they 04:35.200 --> 04:39.040 didn't see what had happened that day. They chased Arbery for bad assumptions. 04:39.040 --> 04:42.880 WILLIAM BRANGHAM: All right, Margaret Coker, editor in chief of The Current, thank you so much. 04:42.880 --> 04:47.880 MARGARET COKER: Thank you.