Thursday, March 28, 2024

AZ Councilman Uses George Floyd’s Words ‘I Can’t Breathe’ To Protest Face Masks (Watch)

councilman-guy-phillips
Councilman Guy Phillips says “I Can’t Breathe” at an anti-mask rally in Scottsdale, Ariz.

*A City Council member in Scottsdale, Ariz. is now apologizing for using the dying words of George Floyd during an anti-mask rally to complain about wearing face coverings.

Masks have been mandated in areas of Arizona, where coronavirus cases have been skyrocketing. During the event Wednesday, Republican Councilman Guy Phillips wore a black face mask, prompting the crowd to shout, “Take the mask off!” In a monotone voice, he responded in the microphone, “I can’t breathe.” He then repeated it, louder: “I can’t breathe” — adopting Floyd’s dying words that have become a rallying cry in nationwide protests against police violence.

Then Phillips ripped off his mask, rolled his eyes and feigned relief as the crowd cheered. He called the mask mandate, “Insanity!”

Needless to say, he’s facing calls to step down.

Per The Washington Post,

Critics on both sides of the aisle have condemned his “callous” insult to Floyd’s memory and the nation’s reckoning over racial injustice. Sen. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) called Phillips’s “I can’t breathe” comment “despicable” while Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) said “despicable doesn’t go far enough” to describe Phillips’s behavior. “The final words of George Floyd should NEVER be invoked like this,” Ducey wrote on Twitter. “Anyone who mocks the murder of a fellow human has no place in public office. Period.”

Watch below:

Phillips told KPNX he intended to show how restrictive masks are and not to mock Floyd.

“It was a stupid and insensitive comment that I shouldn’t have made, and I had no intention of disrespecting anybody while making that comment,” Phillips, who began his second term in 2017, said in a phone interview with the NBC affiliate in Phoenix. The Arizona Republic reported that he also apologized to Floyd’s family.

“I am sorry about a comment I made today that was the same comment Mr. Floyd had made. He didn’t deserve what happened to him, and I by no means was trying to make light of it by saying I can’t breathe in a mask,” Phillips said. “Please accept my sincerest apology and that goes out to anyone who became offended.”

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