The mother of Charlottesville car attack victim Heather Heyer said Thursday she's receiving death threats for speaking out about her daughter's death and the events during last weekend's violent protests, but she is refusing to live in fear.
"I've had death threats already . . . because of what I'm doing right this second," Susan Bro told MSNBC's Katy Tur, while addressing President Donald Trump's claims of violence on both sides.
"Whether there was violence on both sides or not is irrelevant," Bro said, pointing out that her daughter and others injured were simply protesting peacefully when they were hit. "The guy mowed my daughter down and, sorry, that's not excusable."
James Alex Fields, Jr., 20, has been arrested after police said he drove his car into a crowd of protesters, including Heyer, 32, following a white nationalist rally.
Bro said President Donald Trump's office has called "about three times" to speak with her since her daughter's death on Saturday, but she has not had the opportunity to speak with Trump.
"It feels awful, but I just haven't had time to talk to the president," Bro said, but she does think that Trump is catering to the wrong group of voters through his statements following the weekend protests.
"I think the president has found a niche in voters of the people who feel marginalized and I think he has continued to nurture those marginalized voters,” she said.
Bro does, however, believe that people on both sides of the issue should communicate more.
"I want people to start talking to one another," she said. "Equality is . . . when you see a person not a label."
Trump has been roundly condemned for his comments that there were "very fine people" on "both sides" of the rally, and when he did not at first rebuke the white nationalist protesters. He is under further criticism for his comments on Thursday defending the nation's Confederate monuments.
His comments, however, have met with approval from white supremacists, and Bro said her daughter would have "laughed those people "to scorn" if she was still alive.
Bro also said she plans to carry on her daughter's memory through a foundation in her name.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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