Many people saw more than the last moments of Ahmaud Arbery's life when a video emerged this week of white men armed with guns confronting the black man, a struggle with punches thrown, three shots fired and Arbery collapsing dead, reports AP.
The Feb. 23 shooting in coastal Georgia is drawing comparisons to a much darker period of U.S. history - when extrajudicial killings of black people, almost exclusively at the hands of white male vigilantes, inflicted racial terror on African Americans.
It frequently happened with law enforcement complicity or feigned ignorance.
The footage of Arbery's death was not the only thing that rattled the nation's conscience. It took more than two months for his pursuers - who told police they suspected he was a burglar - to be arrested and taken into custody.
That is fueling calls for the resignation of local authorities who initially investigated the case and reforms of Georgia's criminal justice system.
"The modern-day lynching of Mr. Arbery is yet another reminder of the vile and wicked racism that persists in parts of our country," said the Rev. James Woodall, state president of the Georgia NAACP.
"The slothfulness and inaction of the judicial system, in this case, is a gross testament to the blatant white racial privileges that permeates throughout our country and our institutions." The case appeared frozen as it was handled by police in the small city of Brunswick.
After the video emerged on social media this week, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation took one day after launching its probe Wednesday to arrest Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son, Travis McMichael, 34.
