The mother of George Floyd’s 6-year-old daughter broke her silence Tuesday to say his death at the hands of Minneapolis Police forever changed the course of her child’s life.
She said the officers irreversibly “took” Floyd from little Gianna then got “to go home and be with their families.”
“Gianna does not have a father. He will never see her grow up, graduate, he will never walk her down the aisle. If there’s a problem she’s having and she needs a dad, she does not have that anymore,” Roxie Washington said through sobs.
“I’m here for my baby, and I’m here for George because I want justice for him,” Washington, who lives in Houston, said.
“I want justice for him because he was good. No matter what anybody thinks, he was good, and this is the proof,” she said, gesturing toward the little girl with a ruffled white top and two long braids down her back.
“He loved her. He loved her so much,” Washington said, recalling how Floyd jumped to attention the first time he heard Gianna cry after her birth.
She said Floyd had moved to Minneapolis without them in search of work but still supported them.
“He still took care of us. He lived here, but we still had that connection. He still took care of us, provided for us, living here, working,” she said.
Washington spoke Tuesday in Minneapolis alongside Atlanta-based lawyers L. Chris Stewart and Justin Miller.
It was May 25 that Floyd died during a daylight arrest amid the investigation of a non-violent crime.
Bystander video shows he was handcuffed and pinned to the ground by three officers who pushed their knees into his back and neck for more than eight minutes.
Floyd pleaded with the officers to relent, gasping “I can’t breathe,” and calling out for his deceased “Mama” with his last words.
Ex-Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin refused to move off of Floyd’s neck even after one of cops on Floyd’s back questioned the method of restraint.
Chauvin was charged with third-degree murder and second-degree homicide on Friday. The other officers, including one who stood by and watched, have yet to be charged.
Stewart called the lack of charges an obvious failure Tuesday.
He pointed out that prosecutors in Atlanta announced criminal charges Tuesday against all six police officers who allegedly assaulted two college students who were attempting to leave a protest Saturday.
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“But yet here (in Minneapolis), we’re still waiting for the arrest of the other officers. Why can’t (Atlanta) be a blueprint of what should happen in these officer-involved situations?” Stewart asked.
He said the overwhelming feeling is that “justice never truly comes” when a black man loses his life at the hands of police.
“Everybody at home is wondering why riots are happening, why protesting is happening. It is because situations like this do not get addressed,” he said.
“No one is saying that every police officer out there is out to try and kill somebody. But when someone does do something, when someone crosses the line, they have to go through the system and be held accountable,” he said.
