Rayshard Brooks’s widow Tomika Miller has met with George Floyd’s ex partner Roxie Washington for the first time, calling her ‘a spiritual sister who knows my pain’.
During the meeting Tuesday mother-of-four Tomika told CBS she ‘doesn’t know what justice is anymore’ after the former Atlanta cop charged over the death of her husband was released from jail on bail earlier this month.
Brooks, 27, was shot dead by Garrett Rolfe as he ran from officers in the drive-thru of a Wendy’s. His June 12 death exacerbated tensions in the US over police brutality and racism stoked by the killing of Floyd in Minneapolis police custody on May 25.
On Thursday the two women left to grief their deaths met to offer comfort to one another. Washington, the mother of Floyd’s six-year-old daughter Giana, said: ‘I hope we get through it.’
Rayshard Brooks’s widow Tomika Miller, left, has met with George Floyd’s ex partner Roxie Washington, right, for the first time, calling her ‘a spiritual sister who knows my pain’
¿I don¿t know what justice is anymore.¿
Only on @CBSThisMorning, we invited Rayshard Brook¿s wife Tomika Miller and George Floyd¿s former partner Roxie Washington to speak together with Mark Strassmann about their loss.
Watch Monday on @CBS. pic.twitter.com/HWhMICoONe
— CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) July 6, 2020
Rayshard Brooks’s widow Tomika Miller has met with George Floyd’s ex partner Roxie Washington for the first time. Brooks is left with wife Tomika and their children. Floyd is right with his young daughter Giana
In footage aired Tuesday Miller said her husband Brooks was ‘in disbelief’ and ‘heartbroken’ over the death of Floyd. She said: ‘He actually cried. When it happened to me, I couldn’t believe it. I never thought it could happen.’
Floyd’s former partner Washington added: ‘When I saw you and the babies, I was like, I got to get to her. When I saw it, I was like, not again. Not again.’
Former cop Rolfe left Gwinnett County Jail on bail July 1. Miller had asked the court to deny bond, saying she would not feel safe with the former officer free.
When asked if she wants the cops involved in their deaths to spend the rest of their lives behind bars she said Tuesday: ‘I don’t know what justice is anymore to be honest, because the people who murdered my husband kicked him, stood on his shoulder while he was dying are out there in the world.
‘So what is justice? I don’t know. Because that wasn’t just.’
This screen grab taken from body camera video provided by the Atlanta Police Department shows Rayshard Brooks speaking with Officer Garrett Rolfe in the parking lot of a Wendy’s restaurant, late Friday, June 12
Floyd died after Chauvin, a white police officer, pressed his knee against the handcuffed 46-year-old Black man’s neck for nearly eight minutes
Derek Chauvin, 44, left, is charged with second-degree murder over Floyd’s death. Garrett Rolfe, right, faces charges including felony murder in the killing of Brooks
Brooks was married to Miller but on the night of his death, while talking to police, he told them he was at Wendy’s to pick up food for him and his ‘girlfriend Natalie White’.
Police claim White, 29, is partly to blame for setting fire to the fast food restaurant a day later on June 13 . She was arrested on suspicion of setting the fire last month and has since been released on bond.
White’s attorney Drew Findling confirmed to DailyMail.com that the two were ‘very close’ but declined to share more details of their relationship out of respect to Miller, who was grieving him at his funeral while White was taken into custody.
Tomika Miller, the wife of Rayshard Brooks, holds their daughter Memory, two, during the family press conference on Monday, June 15, 2020, in Atlanta
Roxie Washington holds Gianna Floyd, the daughter of George Floyd as they attend his funeral service at The Fountain of Praise church on June 9 in Houston
Natalie White, left and right, who was charged with first degree arson in the burning of an Atlanta Wendy’s in the wake of the Rayshard Brooks shooting. Surveillance video tweeted by Atlanta Fire Rescue shows White, right
Floyd’s daughter Giana has since been offered a full scholarship to Texas Southern University (TSU). Washington said the youngster told her: ‘Daddy changed the world. I believe that there are some good cops, and there are some bad cops.’
Brooks was killed as he ran from cops in the drive-thru of the Wendy’s.
Bodycam footage of the incident shows the black man being approached by the officers after he was found asleep at the wheel of his car.
The officers tried to arrest him and he struggled, eventually reaching for and grabbing one of the officer’s Tasers.
He ran away and was shot twice in the back by Rolfe when he turned to fire the Taser in Rolfe’s direction.
Floyd was killed when Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck for almost nine minutes
His brutal death has inspired protests around the world, calling for defunding of police departments and more money into education and housing.