The video captured by William Bryan brought the world’s attention to the case. Authorities said he participated in the deadly confrontation.
DECATUR, Ga. — From the beginning, William Bryan has portrayed himself as a concerned citizen, one drawn by commotion when he pulled out his phone and filmed the fatal encounter between two of his white neighbors and Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black man who was running in their neighborhood.
On Friday, the authorities said Mr. Bryan, who also is white, had been more than a bystander, and had done more than record the final 30 seconds of Mr. Arbery’s life.
In charging him with murder, officials said that Mr. Bryan, who had joined the pursuit of Mr. Arbery and filmed the confrontation in late February from a short distance, had contributed to his death by attempting to “confine and detain” Mr. Arbery with his vehicle. Mr. Bryan,50, was also charged with criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment.
“If we believed he was a witness, we wouldn’t have arrested him,” Vic Reynolds, the director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, told reporters at a news conference on Friday.
When the chilling video was posted online more than two months after Mr. Arbery was killed on Feb.23, it provoked widespread outrage. Until that point, local activists had struggled to draw broader national attention to the case under the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic.
The video’s release also instigated sweeping investigations into the killing, the Glynn County Police Department’s handling of the case and eventually murder charges against three men, including Mr. Bryan, who was arrested on Thursday evening.
Kevin Gough, Mr. Bryan’s lawyer, said in a statement on Friday that Mr. Bryan had cooperated with law enforcement since the day of the shooting. “It feels like the only thing that has changed” regarding the case, Mr. Gough said, “are the changing political winds. But we will not rush to judgment.”
The charges against Mr. Bryan reflect the stark evolution of the case. Just weeks ago, the prevailing argument by prosecutors was that Mr. Arbery’s death was not a criminal offense and that none of the three men should be held criminally responsible.
