Ahmaud Arbery would have only received a trespassing warning for entering an unfinished Satilla Shores home, a Georgia police officer testified Friday. Glynn County Officer Robert Rash told jurors that he had been working to find who had been trespassing on Larry English’s construction site after English had CCTV of several people entering the property without permission, including Arbery. But Rash said he only intended to issue a warning to them. “Once we make contact with the person on the property, we explain to them the homeowner does not want them there, they have no legal reason to be there,” Rash said. “...I explain to that person, if you ever come back onto this property for any reason, you will be arrested.”

Instead, authorities say that when Greg McMichael saw Arbery running past his house on Feb. 23, 2020, he believed it was the trespasser and took the matter into his own hands. Authorities say he and his son, Travis, armed themselves and chased Arbery with their truck along with neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan. Travis shot Arbery three times.

Before the shooting, Rash had texted English to say he should call Greg McMichael “day or night when you get action on your camera.” But he insisted in his testimony Friday that he was not giving Greg, a former district attorney’s office investigator, authority to act as a cop and only expected him to call the police to be “an expert witness” if anything happened.