Mother of Charlottesville violence victim says she will not speak to Donald Trump

Washington: The mother of a 32-year-old woman who was killed in the racist violence in Virginia has said she will not speak to US President Donald Trump despite having received a number of calls from the White House.

Heather Heyer was killed in Charlottesville, Virginia last week in clashes between far-right and counter-protesters.

A driver rammed his car into people demonstrating along a crowded, narrow street near the University of Virginia. The rally was in protest at the removal of a statue of Robert E Lee, a general who fought for the pro-slavery Confederacy during the US Civil War.

“I have not and now I will not,” Susan Bro told ABC News.

Early this week, Trump had said that he will speak to Bro. She said that she has been receiving a number of calls from the White House.

“I’m not talking to the president now. I’m sorry, after what he said about my child. It’s not that I saw somebody else’s tweets about him. I saw an actual clip of him at a press conference equating the protesters, like Ms Heyer, with the KKK and the white supremacists,” an emotional Bro said in response to a question on Friday.

At least 19 others were injured in the violence. Trump had blamed “both sides” for the violence, sparking a public outrage across the country.

“You want wash this one away by shaking my hand and saying ‘I’m sorry.’ I don’t forgive you for that,” Bro said in another interview to MSNBC.

“My daughter had a mission to make things fair and equitable for everyone, and I am going to continue that mission. And anything he can do to further that mission, I’m going to be behind him,” Bro told the news channel.

The backlash over Trump’s failure to unequivocally condemn racism and white supremacy, culminated in the dissolution of two key business advisory panels and an avalanche of condemnation from across the political spectrum.