Travis McMichael took the stand to testify in his defense Wednesday describing the moments that led to the fatal shooting of Ahmaud Arbery on Feb. 23, 2020.
The 35-year-old, his father Greg McMichael, and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan are accused of chasing the unarmed 25-year-old Arbery and gunning him down while he was out for a jog around their Brunswick neighborhood.
“He had my gun. He struck me. It was obvious that he was attacking me, that if he would have gotten the shotgun from me, then this was a life-or-death situation, and I’m going to have to stop him from doing this, so I shot.”
McMichael added that twelve days before the tragedy, he had spotted the jogger “lurking” and “creeping” around a nearby construction site.
“He was just creeping through the shadows. I thought, ‘What’s going on here?’” he said.
At one point, Arbery appeared to pull up his shirt and reach out to his waistband: “It freaked me out. I’m under the assumption he’s armed. I jumped back into the vehicle and he runs into the house.”
Travis McMichael concluded his testimony wiping tears, detailing how he and Arbery were scuffling over the gun with the victim “overpowering” him.
“I shot him,” he said before asserting that the murder was “the most traumatic experience of my life.”