Gianna Floyd, six, said she misses her father, with her mother adding that he would play with her ‘all day long’
Protesters rally against the death of George Floyd in Portland, Oregon, on 31 May. Photograph: Terray Sylvester/Reuters
Kenya Evelyn@LiveFromKenya-The young daughter of George Floyd, the 46-year-old African American man who was killed by a white Minneapolis police officer, with the killing captured in a now viral video taken by a witness, has spoken out for the first time.
Six-year-old Gianna Floyd told Good Morning America on Tuesday “that [she] miss[ed] him”, describing her father as a fun man who often played with her.
“He would put her on his shoulders,” Roxie Washington, her mother, had said on Good Morning America on Monday. “She didn’t have to play with nobody else because Daddy was gonna play all day long.”
She added Floyd was a good father who wanted his daughter “to have the best”. “That was his baby. He loved his little girl,” she said.
George Floyd moved to Minneapolis a few years ago from his native Houston, Texas, seeking new opportunities, following some close friends who had done likewise, and found jobs in the Minnesota city.
Roxie Washington said: “We were struggling so he did what he had to do as a man and he had to come here [to Minneapolis] to work.”
“My heart is broke,” she said.
At a news conference on Tuesday, after days of protests following his death, Washington declared she is “here for [her] baby”. Floyd died last month after Derek Chauvin, a 19-year police veteran, pressed a knee into his neck as he pleaded for air, but eventually stopped moving. The official autopsy ruled his death a homicide.
'He will never see her grow up': tearful mother of George Floyd's daughter – video
“He was a good man,” Washington said through tears. “I loved him so much I wanted to help him or I wish I could’ve been there to help him. And just hearing him begging for his life.”
Washington said she and Gianna learned of Floyd’s killing through a niece and close friend. Their home town of Houston held a memorial march that drew tens of thousands of people on the eighth day of nationwide demonstrations.
His family was in attendance, alongside the mayor, the police chief and a group of protesters on horseback, with attendees paying respects to a “gentle giant”.
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