Bernstein then began detailing past incidents of racist behavior. Travis McMichael, who fatally shot Arbery, allegedly previously used racial epithets about Black people, and once called them “animals, criminals, monkeys, sub-human savages.”
“Zero [n-words] work with me,” he wrote in a text message to a friend, prosecutors alleged on Monday. “They ruined everything. That’s why I love what I do now. Not an [n-word] in sight.”
Prosecutors say that his father, who was a former cop, allegedly made a negative comment after the 2015 death of Julian Bond, a civil rights activist and former Georgia state representative. “Bad?! I wish he'd been put in the ground years ago. He’s nothing but trouble. Those Blacks are nothing but trouble,” McMichael allegedly told a witness while he was still an investigator for a local DA’s office. The witness is set to testify during the trial.
But in what is perhaps the most disturbing example of racism from the trio, prosecutors allege that just days before Arbery’s murder, Bryan made several racist comments after learning his daughter was dating a Black man.
“[She] is dating a [n-word] now,” Bryan allegedly said in a message. Bryan also repeatedly referred to the man by the racial slur and called him a “monkey,” Bernstein said.
On the day of Arbery’s death, Bernstein said that Bryan told authorities he saw the 25-year-old “running and knew he had to be a criminal.” When asked what evidence he had to justify that Arbery could have been the individual that had been previously breaking into a home under construction in the neighborhood, Bryan responded, “instinct.”