ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. — Even before video surfaced of a dazed 19-year-old being sprayed with a water hose by other teens, Coastal Georgia had endured more than its share of bleak headlines:
The 2019 capsizing of a cargo ship, the Golden Ray, and the disastrous cleanup effort that followed.
The 2020 killing of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man chased through suburban streets by three white men and murdered.
An explosion and fire at the Port of Brunswick that burned for days May 2021, and several industrial explosions at a Brunswick chemical plant last November that required resident evacuations.
So the viral video and photos of a teen being brutalized and humiliated by his peers, then dropped off unconscious at a Brunswick hospital, is just the latest calamitous news cycle.
That undercurrent of concern surfaced at a Wednesday press conference held by Glynn County Police Chief O’Neal Jackson, who answered several questions before an aide tried to wrap things up. “He’s a busy man and we’ve got to go,” she said. “We have a lot of things to take care of.”
A reporter quickly pushed back. “Chief, disregarding that because I think you would probably like to let people of this community know that you are here to speak to them, and answer their questions about this, and aren’t ‘too busy’ to do that.”
The reporter continued, “What do you say to those people, especially those hundreds of people that gathered at that vigil the other night? The [District Attorney] is asking for patience here, but they remember another case here where it took 74 days for someone to be arrested. What do you say to people in this community that are so upset that it took days for this to come into the public, and now we’re a week later, and they say an arrest is overdue.”
The ‘74 days’ is a reference to the arrests of Travis and Greg McMichael, two of the three men who murdered Ahmaud Arbery, who weren’t arrested the day of the killing or for nearly three months after.
Both had law enforcement connections, and the question of whether they were treated favorably because of their influential ties isn’t just community scuttlebutt. It’s the focus of a federal criminal case.
Former District Attorney Jackie Johnson was indicted on charges of violation of an oath of a public officer and obstruction, for allegedly showing “favor and affection” toward Greg McMichael, and “directing that Travis McMichael should not be placed under arrest.” Johnson was indicted in September 2021, but has never been formally arraigned, and there is no court date currently set in the case.
A third man, Roddie Bryan, was arrested two weeks later. All three were convicted of murder, and became the first three people in Georgia history to be charged with a federal hate crime.
In response to the question, Chief Jackson conceded the latest incident is “a sad and misfortunate event.”
But he urged people seeing the awful headlines not to think the worst of Coastal Georgia.
“I want the rest of America if you will, and from across the pond [to know] that we, the citizens of Glynn County, are really mostly good people. Hard-working people This is an isolated incident, and don’t judge Glynn County by one group of juvenile teens.”