Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
TRUMP SET TO SNUB VICTIM OF GUN COP
President will meet officer’s colleagues on Wisconsin trip
DONALD Trump is to visit the city where a black man was shot in the back and left paralysed by a white police officer, but has no plans to visit the victim in hospital.
On his visit to Kenosha, Wisconsin, tomorrow, the President will meet colleagues of Rusten Sheskey, the officer who fired seven rounds at Jacob Blake.
Protests against racial injustice and police brutality have raged in the city since 29-year-old Blake was shot.
Two people were killed, and a third was seriously wounded in a shooting by a vigilante during the demonstrations.
Wisconsin governor Tony Evers declared a state of emergency, deployed the National Guard and imposed a curfew.
Asked about Kenosha, Trump claimed the crackdown had been a “tremendous success”. He added: “We were finally able to get the go-ahead from local authorities to send in the National Guard. Within minutes, everybody cleared out and it became safe.”
Asked if he thought the shooting by officer Sheskey was justified, he said: “I’m looking into it very strongly. I’ll be getting reports. It was not a good sight. I didn’t like the sight of it, certainly.”
Yesterday, Trump’s daughterin-law Lara claimed he wants to meet the Blake family.
She said: “He has reached out to [them]. I don’t know if they were able to connect yet. I’m sure, given the opportunity, he’ll be more than happy to do that.” Trump’s rival for the White House, Democrat Joe Biden, has already spoken to Jacob Blake’s family. Blake’s father, also named Jacob, said the hour-long conversation had been like “speaking to my uncle”. Trump used last week’s Republican National Convention to criticise Black Lives Matter protests. And a man was shot dead in Portland, Oregon, on Saturday in clashes between Trump backers and BLM supporters. Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes, a Democrat, urged the President to stay away from Kenosha.
He said: “They centred an entire convention around creating more division around what’s going on in Kenosha.”