The lawyer for one of the police officers involved in the killing of George Floyd has stormed out of a television interview after denying the death was a "race issue".
Earl Gray, attorney for Minneapolis officer Thomas Lane, appeared on Good Morning Britain on Monday (local time).
Lane is charged with aiding and abetting second degree murder after his colleague Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd's throat for almost nine minutes.
Host Piers Morgan pointed out Floyd was unarmed and had pleaded multiple times that he couldn't breathe.
"Your client heard a man shout 16 times I can't breathe," said Morgan.
"Did he shout that? Did he shout that really? Did he say, why didn't he say I can't breathe when they were trying to put him in the car?" retorted Gray angrily.
He then accused Morgan of being too opinionated, saying it was "too bad" because he was "wrong".
"Yes isn't it awful I have an opinion about a black man being killed at the hands of your client," replied Morgan sarcastically.
The comment about Floyd being black angered Gray even more as he denied the killing was racially motivated.
"Now you're putting race into it - there's really no race issue here."
Gray went on to say two of the four officers accused of being involved in Floyd's death were people of colour.
"Two of the four officers - one is black and the other one is asian," he said.
Gray then cut the interview short, saying he was going to go to bed as Morgan "obviously" didn't know what he was talking about.
A post-mortem has ruled that Floyd was murdered - he suffered cardiac arrest while being pinned down by Chauvin.
Chauvin has been charged with second degree murder and officers Lane, J Alexander Kueng and Tou Thou are all acccused of aiding and abetting second degree murder.
Floyd's death has sparked global protests over the treatment of black people in the US.
Thousands have gathered in major cities to demand change to the systemic racism that has enabled police to disproportionately brutalise black people for generations.
As a result of the protests Minnesota City Council has pledged to defund and dismantle it's police department.
"We committed to dismantling policing as we know it in the city of Minneapolis and to rebuild with our community a new model of public safety that actually keeps our community safe," Council President Lisa Bender told CNN.
