Joe Biden Urges Charges Against Police Who Shot Two Black Americans

"I think we should let the judicial system work its way," he said. "I do think at a minimum, they need to be charged, the officers."

Former vice-president Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris has urged charges against police who shot Blake and Taylor.

Speaking in Delaware, Biden did not set out what counts should be brought in the cases, which have added racial justice protests nationwide.

The Democratic nominee spoke after attaining a record fundraising haul in August.

He has a lead over President Donald Trump, a Republican, in opinion polls ahead of November’s election.

During a news conference in his hometown of Wilmington on Wednesday, Joe Biden was asked whether he agreed with his running mate, Kamala Harris, that the officers in the Blake and Taylor cases should be charged.

“I think we should let the judicial system work its way,” he said. “I do think at a minimum, they need to be charged, the officers.”

Mr Blake, 29, was shot several times in the back and paralyzed during an apprehend in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on 23 August.

No decision has so far been taken against the police who shot him, on going investigations by the Wisconsin and US departments of justice.

Ms Taylor, 26, was deadly shot in her home during a drug raid in Louisville, Kentucky, on 13 March.

One of the police is losing his job; two others have been put on administrative leave as the investigation into their actions proceeds.

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The Democratic nominee Joe Biden also revealed the gunman, identified in US media as a far-left activist, who fatally shot a Trump supporter on the streets of Portland, Oregon, last weekend.

Joe Biden stopped short of calling for charges in that case, but said: “They should be investigated and it should follow through on what needs to be done.”

“Let the judicial system work. Let’s make sure justice is done.”

Biden had been delivering comments about how to open schools safely amid COVID-19 pandemic.

His remarks came a day before he travels to Kenosha, where he says he wants to assist “heal” the city after it was destroyed by days of violent protests.

Mr Biden said he had received “overwhelming requests” to visit this latest flashpoint in America’s racial reckoning over law enforcement shootings.

He will meet Mr Blake’s father and other members of the family during the visit.

President Trump, a Republican, did not meet the family during his own visit to Kenosha on Tuesday, claiming he decided not to because of plans to have lawyers attend with the relatives.

Biden’s visit to Wisconsin comes four years after the previous Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, disregarded the Midwestern state during her campaigning, and it happened to be vital in Trump’s against-all-odds 2016 election victory.

At his own event in North Carolina on Wednesday, President Donald Trump continued to talk tough about “violent mobs” at protests.

“These people know one thing – strength,” he said.

Trump also aimed his administration to look into stripping federal funding for “anarchist jurisdictions” including New York City, Seattle, Washington DC and Portland, Oregon.

Earlier in the day, the Biden campaign announced a $364m (£272m) fundraising haul for August, more than both he and Trump pulled in in the previous month.

The Democrat will splurge $45m of his war chest on a single ad rebutting opposition alleged that he will not oppose with rioters and looters.

It will splice clips of him being against violence at protests, which he has done many times since the demonstrations started with the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in May.

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Donald Trump, meanwhile, will air a battle ad in Minnesota with the message: “Communities not criminals. Jobs not mobs.”

Joe Biden has a clear single-digit lead in opinion polls nationally and is leading by a somewhat smaller margin in the handful of swing states that will actually decide this election.

A new survey covering the critical state of Pennsylvania, by Monmouth University on Wednesday, revealed Biden’s lead over Donald Trump had shrunk from 10 points in July to three points now.

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