Biden travels to Wisconsin to meet with Black man shot, paralyzed by police.
Dem nominee, wife have ‘very engaging’ meeting
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said Thursday he spoke with Jacob Blake, who told the former vice president “he wasn’t going to give up” after he was shot and paralyzed by a police officer in August, an incident that sent waves of violence through Kenosha, Wisconsin.
“He talked about how nothing was going to defeat him, how whether he walked again or not, he wasn’t going to give up,” Biden told a gathering of community members in a Kenosha church Thursday.
Shortly after Biden and his wife, Jill, arrived in Wisconsin, they had a 90minute meeting with Blake’s family. At Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport, they met with Blake’s father Jacob Sr., sister Letetra Widman, brother Myron Jackson, sister Zietha Blake and mother Julia Jackson, who attended by phone. Also attending the meeting were members of Blake’s legal team, Ben Crump, Patrick Salvi and B’ivory Lamarr.
Biden said Blake’s mother offered a prayer for her son and for the police officer who shot him. “What I came away with was the overwhelming sense of resilience,” Biden said.
Crump said the Bidens had a “very engaging” meeting with the family. Blake, 29, joined by phone from his hospital bed.
“Mr. Blake Sr. talked about the need for systemic reform because the excessive use of force by police against minorities has been going on for far too long,” Crump said. “It was very obvious that Vice President Biden cared, as he extended to Jacob Jr. a sense of humanity, treating him as a person worthy of consideration and prayer.”
The Bidens then headed to Kenosha to meet with about a dozen members of the community at Grace Lutheran Church to calm violent protests that erupted after police shot Blake.
Barb Deberge, owner of Deberge Framing & Gallery, told Biden people broke into her building and looted it but were unable to burn it to the ground because of the work of a good Samaritan.
“We’re lucky we’re still standing,” Deberge said. “Otherwise, our store would have been up in flames.”
Porsche Bennett, an organizer for Black Lives Activists Kenosha, said people need to see action from political leaders such as holding police officers accountable to the same charges as other defendants.
“We are heavily angry,” said Bennett, 31, who said she wants a better future for her children. “There’s a difference between a protester and a rioter. We protest to get our voices heard.”
Biden’s visit to the political battleground state came two days after President Donald Trump traveled to Kenosha to tour burned-out buildings damaged in the protests.
“This is the first chance we’ve had in a generation, in my view, to deal and to cut another slice off of institutional racism,” Biden said.