There were no burglaries in the McMichaels' neighborhood

[tulipsandroses]

The difference between the McMichaels’ trial and the Rittenhouse trial is the efficacy of the prosecutor. The GA Prosecutor put on a master class. She tore down every defense and explained to the jury why this could not be self defense.
The rash of burglaries was another defense she tore down

The prosecutor, Linda Dunikoski, pointed out that out of all of the 911 calls made in 2019, only one was for burglary, and ultimately that call turned out to be a false alarm. Dunikoski then asked Travis McMichael how he learned about crime in the neighborhood, to which he replied that he learned from Facebook and his mother.

The testimony highlights a crucial privilege of whiteness (and maleness): always being given the benefit of the doubt. For months before they were even indicted, the defendants got to spread their version of the story. And the media published their claims over and over without questioning, fact-checking, or offering a counter narrative.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/11/mcmichaels-defense-assumption-whiteness-trial.html

[Skittles]

1. and going into a house under construction...

I've done that myself, it is a curiosity thing.

[Solomon]

2. I come from a construction family. Believe me.

Lots of people do it. They are curious how things are built.

[Skittles]

7. honestly if you asked me prior to this tragedy

I would have had a hard time explaining why I do it - when they built a huge housing project across the street from me, I was there constantly in the middle of the night checking it out (I'm a night worker, always awake all night), going up the stairs, checking the views out the windows.....I'm glad to hear it is more common than I imagined

may I ask, is it common for the insides to be filmed?

[Raine]

3. Seems like I heard that Arbery was planning on being an electrician

so it makes perfect sense that he was watching the progress on the house and taking note of how the electricity was being installed. Lots of people are interested in watching the construction of house and buildings.

[catchnrelease]

6. Thank you!

I was just going to post asking about this. I swear I had read that a friend of Arbery's said that A wanted to be an electrician and was checking out the progress and steps of the electrical work being done in the house. Then I never heard another thing about that. I thought maybe the prosecutors would bring it up as a reason for him to go into the house on several occasions. I started to think I had misread or dreamed that story. It seems like a very normal thing for people to want to check out the inner workings of a house as it goes up.

[NJCher]

8. One news source

Said he was interested in building a house.

[murielm99]

5. When I was in high school,

my family had to move out of our rented home quickly. We had a two year lease. My parents had expected the lease to be extended, but the family who owned it moved back to town. A cousin found us a rental home. It was small and inadequate, but it was a roof over our heads.

Two doors away, a nice ranch house was being built. My dad wanted it. He went inside several times a week. I went with him a couple of times.

My dad was able to secure a mortgage on the house. My parents lived there for the next thirty-five years.

[PatSeg]

11. Yes, that is relatively common

We did it a lot when we were kids and my parents often stopped at houses under construction out of curiosity.

[11 Bravo]

13. I remember when my Dad got detailed to the Pentagon for a tour of duty ...

we bought a house in northern VA in a neighborhood under tons of new construction. I wondered in and out of literally scores of such homes as a kid.
Fortunately for me, I'm white.

[ProfessorGAC]

16. I Certainly Did It As A Kid

I'm not the "buildy" type guy, so as an adult, no. But, as a kid I did it several times.
Stealing something never occurred to any of us.
Just fascination with something new.

[Kali]

4. It is a typical bullshit line from the cops.

Suspicious activity, a vehicle fitting this description, person matching your description l, received a call...
Just regular old cop lies. They do it all the time.

[mnhtnbb]

9. I bought a house in a new development

under construction last year. All of my neighbors--including me--were in and out of our houses as they were being built or have walked through other floor plans of our neighbors as they were being built. It's routine.

It also turns out our neighborhood is very diverse as we are a mix of white, black, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian singles, couples, straight and gay. Nobody was chased down and murdered for walking through a house under construction.

We did have an incident a couple of months ago where about 15 cop cars responded to a call of burglary in progress when a van rolled up at night and the guys in it started loading construction materials off the site. The driver took off, with materials sliding out the back of the truck and left his buddies to run into the woods to get away. No shots were fired.

This is life in Durham, part of the Research Triangle area of North Carolina.

[LiberalFighter]

12. As my house was being built I checked on it regularly in 1987.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

10. Who is surprised by this?

This was a lynch mob who was mad at a non-white coming into their neighborhood

[moondust]

14. What sort of construction materials

can you hide in a pair of khaki shorts and still be able to jog away comfortably in broad daylight?

[Irish_Dem]

15. Wooden 2"x4"s; concrete; bricks; stones; roofing shingles. Stove; microwave, frig.

Right, should all easily fit in a man's shorts.

I have lived in several new home construction sites where there were some thefts.
In every single case, a truck was needed.

The whole defense was B.S.

[ProfessorGAC]

17. He Must Have Been Really Strong!

Or all 3 of them made it up.
I'm going with option b.