Lawyers on both sides of the Ahmaud Arbery slay case delivered blistering closing arguments Monday, with prosecutors suggesting the jogger was shot “because he was a black man running down the street’’ and the defense insisting the killing was self-defense.

Three white men — Travis McMichael, his father Gregory McMichael and their neighbor William Bryan Jr. — are charged with murder, hate crimes and other felony offenses in the case. Arbery, 25, was killed while running through their neighborhood just outside the Georgia port city of Brunswick on Feb. 23, 2020.

“They made their decision to attack Ahmaud Arbery in their driveways because he was a black man running down the street,” special prosecutor Linda Dunikoski told jurors in the racially charged case.

“They assumed he must have committed some crime that day. He’s running real fast down the street, right?” she said.

“They shot and killed him. Not because he was a threat to them. But because he wouldn’t stop and talk to them,” Dunikoski said.

“They were going to make him, absolutely make him stop,” she said.

The defense has argued that the men believed Arbery was fleeing a burglary after having seen him looking around a local home under construction. But Dunikoski contended that the men had no right to make a citizen’s arrest because they didn’t have any knowledge of him committing a crime.

“They don’t know what he’s done. They don’t know why he’s out there running. They don’t have immediate knowledge. They have no knowledge. They have speculation because he is running down the street,” Dunikoski said.

She noted that the defendants didn’t mention that they were making a citizen’s arrest in the immediate aftermath of the killing, which involved Arbery taking three bullets from a shotgun.

“They have to somehow justify their actions by claiming citizen’s arrest” later, she said.

She also rejected the men’s argument that they were acting in self-defense in the encounter when Arbery threw punches and grabbed for his shotgun — comparing the men to schoolyard bullies who attack someone who fights back.

“They can’t claim self-defense under the law because they were the original unjustified aggressors” she said of the defendants.

Though only Travis McMichael fired the gun, Dunikoski insisted they’re all just as guilty as parties to the crime.

“Everybody is involved, everybody’s responsible. That’s what the law says,” she said.

She urged the jury to compare the other men’s involvement in the killing to how “everybody gets a Super Bowl ring.

“The quarterback gets a Super Bowl ring. You guys have a Super Bowl ring. The dude on the bench. It’s a Super Bowl ring, right?” she said.

She argued that if it wasn’t for the three men’s “driveway decisions,” Arbery would still be alive.

“And that’s why they’ve been indicted with murder, felony murder and the four felonies that led to the murder,” she said.

Kevin Gough, who is representing Bryan, later demanded a mistrial over what he said was a coffin outside of the courthouse with the three defendants’ names on it.

The court arguments were made as dozens of black militia members — some carrying long rifles — stood vigil outside the building. 

“This is no longer a figurative mob. This is a literal mob,” Gough told the judge.

But the judge denied his request for a mistrial, saying, “Individuals have a right to be outside the courthouse.”

Meanwhile, a militia member who identified himself to Fox News as the supreme commander of the New Black Panther, told the outlet, ‘Ya’ll are in serious trouble because the wrath of karma is coming on America.

“We’re not taking it no more,” the man warned. 

In court, Jason Sheffield, a lawyer for Travis McMichael, argued that his client lawfully acted based off what he believed was “necessary” after suspecting Arbery of running from a burglary.

“He’s done what he thinks the law allows him to do, which is to try to de-escalate.. by showing force necessary to prevent Travis himself or his father from getting beaten and possibly killed,” Sheffield said.

“This is where the law is intertwined with death or tragedy,” the lawyer said.

“If this was a case about wanting to murder a black jogger, Travis would not have reacted the way he reacted,” he added.

Sheffield said that while Travis “wishes” the fatal encounter unfolded differently, it “does not mean that his actions on that day weren’t rooted in the law.

“You are allowed to use force that is likely to cause death or serious bodily injury if you believe it’s necessary,” the lawyer said.

Sheffield said Travis had already established Arbery as a threat after he spotted him a couple of weeks earlier, on Feb. 11, at the construction site. The lawyer said Travis saw Arbery reach into his waistband, as though he had a gun, at the time.

The encounter “totally freaks out Travis,” Sheffield told jurors.

Sheffield said the incident and reports in the neighborhood of burglaries, including from the owner of the construction home, Larry English, constituted as “immediate knowledge” of a potential crime that warranted a citizens’ arrest.

“What could be more immediate than seeing the videos of [Arbery] in the house and [Travis] talking with police officers and other people, including hearing from Larry English through others, that [English] actually had stuff stolen. It was an offense that has been committed, and [Travis] knows about it,” he said.

Sheffield said Travis had no reason to believe that [Arbery] was exercising Feb. 23, claiming, “There is no evidence that Ahmaud Arbery ever jogged or exercised in Satilla Shores.

“Not one friend, not one family member, and not one eyewitness” testified that Arbery jogged there, Sheffield said.

Defense lawyer Laura Hogue, who is representing the elder McMichael, said no one is arguing that Arbery “deserved to die for whatever it was he was doing inside” of the unfinished home.

But she said that he should have stopped “when Travis’s truck rolled up beside him, to wait to tell the police what he was doing there.

“He died because for whatever inexplicable, illogical reason, instead of staying where he was, whatever overwhelming reason he had to avoid being captured that day and arrested by the police,” she said.

Meanwhile, Gough urged the jury to take care to consider his client separately from the McMichaels.

In his closing arguments, Gough stressed that Bryan was “was armed only with a cellphone” and did not know that the McMichaels had a weapon when he joined the chase.

“Roddie Bryan was not aware of any intention, and could not be a party to the crime of malice murder, because he can’t intentionally help commit a crime he doesn’t know is under way,” he said.

The closing arguments come after the primarily white jury heard 10 days of testimony, including from Travis, who told the court that he shot Arbery dead while defending himself during a struggle over his shotgun.

The jurors – 11 white men and women and a black man – have listened to testimony including from the younger McMichael who claimed that he had tried to “de-escalate” the situation when he chased Arbery.

Travis, the only defendant to take the stand, said he was forced to make e a “life-or-death” decision to shoot him as Arbery grabbed his gun.

Bryan, the neighbor, recorded video of McMichael opening fire and killing him.

The McMicheals and Bryan were not arrested until more than two months later, after video of the slaying leaked online.

Authorities said Arbery was unarmed at the time, and relatives have characterized his killing as a “lynching.”

Jurors will weigh whether the McMichaels and Bryan were justified in their efforts to detain Arbery under Georgia’s citizen’s arrest law, which was largely repealed in the wake of the slaying.

Arbery had visited the home under construction at least five times before the fatal shooting, but prosecutors said there’s no proof he ever took anything from the site.

Dunikoski said Arbery was just doing a “looky loo” at the property at the time.