The white man who fatally shot Ahmaud Arbery after chasing the 25-year-old Black man in a Georgia neighborhood was sentenced Monday to life in prison for committing a federal hate crime.
Travis McMichael was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Lisa Godbey Wood in the port city of Brunswick. His punishment is largely symbolic, as McMichael was sentenced earlier this year to life without parole in a Georgia state court for Arbery’s murder.
Wood said McMichael had received a fair trial.
“And it’s not lost on the court that it was the kind of trial that Ahmaud Arbery did not receive before he was shot and killed,” the judge said.
Before the sentencing, she heard from members of Arbery’s family. His mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, said she feels every shot that was fired at her son everyday.
“It’s so unfair, so unfair, so unfair that he was killed while he was not even committing a crime,” she said.