In Georgia, the three white men who chased down and killed Ahmaud Arbery in 2020 asked a federal appeals court Wednesday to toss out their hate crime convictions. The three convicted murderers say prosecutors did not prove they targeted Arbery, whom they shot and killed while he was out for a jog, because he was Black. During the trial of William Bryan and father and son Greg and Travis McMichael, prosecutors shared dozens of racist text messages and social media posts from the men in the months and years before the murder of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery. Ahmaud’s father, Marcus Arbery, responded to the news Wednesday.

Marcus Arbery: “The evidence is just too strong against those men. I don’t care what them lawyers have said. Evidence was just too strong. And me and my family, we just have to be strong and just sit back. We know everything will be all right, because the evidence was just too strong against those three men.”