Alan Tucker, Lawyer Who Leaked Ahmaud Arbery Shooting Video, Says He Was 'Trying to Stop a Riot'

The man who released video that captured the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed black man killed while out for a jog in Georgia, claimed in an interview with Inside Edition he leaked the footage in an effort "to stop a riot."

Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son, Travis, 34, who are white, were arrested late Thursday, more than two months after the shooting. Their mug shots were the #1 trending topic of Facebook Friday.

Video of the shooting was taken by a friend of the McMichaels who was following in his car, and was leaked by attorney Alan Tucker, also a friend of the McMichaels.

"I was trying to stop a riot," Tucker told Inside Edition. When asked to further explain, Tucker said, "Well, you saw what happened to Baltimore, you've seen what happened to Charleston, you saw what happened to Ferguson. I was trying to stop a riot."

According to an incident report filed by Glynn County police, Arbery was shot after the McMichaels, spotted him in their neighborhood and thought he matched the description of someone caught on a security camera committing recent break-ins in the area. They armed themselves with guns before getting in a truck to pursue him, according to the report. The elder McMichael said the jogger "violently" attacked his son, and the two fought over Travis' shotgun, with Travis shooting Arbery twice, the report said. Neither man has commented to news media about the shooting. 

No reports of such break-ins were made in the weeks leading up to the shooting of Arbery, a police lieutenant told CNN.

"The video speaks for itself," Tucker said. "What happened, happened. I don't have an excuse for it. I can't explain. Other than, we always say, 'What if he had just froze and hadn't done anything, he wouldn't have gotten shot.'"

After the video was released, demands mounted for arrests to be made in Arbery's death, as accusations of racial bias and descriptions of his killing as a "lynching" flooded social media from politicians, his family and celebrities. 

RELATED STORIES