Calgary Herald

‘HE DIDN’T GIVE ME AN OPPORTUNIT­Y TO SPEAK … I WAS TRYING TO TALK TO HIM, BUT HE JUST KEPT, LIKE, PUSHING ME OUT’: GEORGE FLOYD’S BROTHER COMPLAINS ABOUT FRUSTRATIN­G CONVERSATI­ON WITH TRUMP.

- DAVID MILLWARD

Donald Trump has been accused of denying the brother of the man who died while being arrested by a Minneapoli­s police officer the chance to speak during a telephone call in which the U.S. president offered his condolence­s.

Philonise Floyd spoke to Trump and Joe Biden, the Democratic party’s presumptiv­e presidenti­al nominee, in the aftermath of the death of his 46-year-old brother, George.

Trump’s attempts to defuse the tension, fuelled by video footage showing police officer Derek Chauvin with his knee on George Floyd’s neck, appeared to have failed.

“It was so fast, he didn’t give me an opportunit­y to speak,” Floyd told Rev. Al Sharpton on MSNBC.

“It was how I was trying to talk to him but he just kept like pushing me out like, ‘I don’t want to hear what you’re talking about.’

“And I just told him, I want justice. I said that I couldn’t believe that they committed a modern-day lynching in broad daylight.”

Floyd said he had asked Biden to secure justice for his brother. “I asked vice-president Biden — I never had to beg a man before

IT WAS HOW I WAS TRYING TO TALK TO HIM BUT HE JUST KEPT LIKE PUSHING ME OUT.

— but I asked him, could he please, please get justice for my brother,” Floyd said.

“I need it. I do not want to see him on a shirt just like the other guys.

“Nobody deserved that. Black folk don’t deserve that. We’re all dying. Black lives matter.”

Earlier Trump had expressed his sympathy with Floyd’s family, describing them as “terrific people.”

“I just expressed my sorrow. That was a horrible thing to witness,” he said, adding that it “looked like there was no excuse for it.”

Having seen the video, the president said it was obvious that Floyd was in great pain.

However, Trump’s other responses, notably the language he has used in threatenin­g to set “vicious dogs” on protesters at the White House, have led to the president being accused of being tone-deaf to the anger that has swept the country.

Biden has been unequivoca­l in his support for the family, condemning racial injustice in America and calling for police reform.

“Weeks like this we see it plainly that we’re a country with an open wound.

“And none of us can turn away,” Biden said in a broadcast on Friday.

“None of us can be silent. None of us can any longer, can we hear the words ‘I can’t breathe’ and do nothing.”

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Canada