The murder trial for Ahmaud Arbery’s killing is starting. Here’s what you need to know.

Updated October 19, 2021 at 12:42 p.m. EDT|Published October 18, 2021 at 6:44 p.m. EDT
Carla Arbery hugs her daughter Aaliyah while singing during a call to service rally on the day before jury selection for the trial in the shooting death of her nephew Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Georgia, U.S., October 17, 2021. REUTERS/Octavio Jones (Octavio Jones/Reuters)

Ahmaud Arbery’s killing in February 2020 initially drew little attention. A district attorney quickly concluded that three White men committed no crime when they chased and shot the 25-year-old Black man on a suburban street of coastal Georgia.

Then, after more than two months without arrests, a leaked video of the fatal confrontation went viral, prompting comparisons to a lynching. Soon, Greg McMichael, his son Travis McMichael and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan were charged with murder.

Jury selection in the men’s trial started Monday and could last weeks, as lawyers and the judge seek impartial arbiters for a nationally watched case that became a rallying cry in a broader racial justice movement. The prosecution has cast the defendants as vigilantes who racially profiled a jogger, while the accused say they attempted a legitimate citizen’s arrest and then acted in self-defense.

Here is what you need to know about the case.

Ahmaud Arbery’s killing changed his Georgia community. Now three men will stand trial for murder.