President Joe Biden detoured to Charlotte on Thursday to meet the families of law enforcement officers shot to death on the job, just a week after he sat down with the grieving relatives of two cops killed in upstate New York.
Quick Read
- Biden’s Visit to Charlotte: President Joe Biden made a stop in Charlotte, North Carolina, to meet with families and wounded officers affected by a recent fatal shooting of law enforcement officers.
- Private Meetings: The meetings were conducted privately at the airport, avoiding public exposure and minimizing logistical demands on local law enforcement.
- Commemoration of Fallen Officers: Biden met with the families of four officers killed in a shooting incident involving a wanted felon. The officers were part of a task force attempting an arrest at the time.
- Gun Control Advocacy: During his visit, Biden reiterated his call for stricter gun regulations, specifically the banning of assault weapons like the AR-15 used in the shooting.
- Campaign and Policy Focus: The visit underscores Biden’s ongoing campaign focus on gun violence prevention and support for law enforcement, contrasting with Republican accusations of being soft on crime.
- Additional Public Engagement: Following the visit, Biden is set to travel to Wilmington to announce additional federal funding for replacing lead pipes, emphasizing infrastructure improvements under his administration.
The Associated Press has the story:
Biden stops in Charlotte during his NC trip to meet families of fallen law enforcement officers
Newslooks- CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) —
President Joe Biden detoured to Charlotte on Thursday to meet the families of law enforcement officers shot to death on the job, just a week after he sat down with the grieving relatives of two cops killed in upstate New York.
Biden was headed to a speech in Wilmington, North Carolina, and added on the visit to see the families, as well as wounded officers involved in the shooting.
The meeting took place with little fanfare behind closed doors, as the White House wanted Biden to be seen as respecting the privacy of grieving families and avoiding the appearance of using their grief for political purposes. He met with the group that included elected officials at the airport, taking a short motorcade over to a nearby building instead of traveling into the city – an option meant to be the least taxing for local law enforcement still reeling from the deaths but who would have a hand in securing the president’s trip.
Once again, Biden was seeking to be an empathetic leader for a community reeling from gun violence, while also calling for stricter rules around firearms and more money for law enforcement on the front lines.
Four officers were killed this week in North Carolina, when a wanted man opened fire on a joint agency task force that had come to arrest him on a warrant for possession of a firearm as an ex-felon, and fleeing to elude capture. They were: Sam Poloche and William Elliott of the North Carolina Department of Adult Corrections; Charlotte-Mecklenburg Officer Joshua Eyer; and Deputy U.S. Marshal Thomas Weeks.
Four other officers were wounded in the gunfire; the suspect was killed. An AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, a 40-caliber handgun and ammunition were found at the scene.
An AR-15 is among the weapons most often used in mass shootings, and it’s the type of gun Biden is talking about when he says the U.S. should ban “ assault weapons.” Congress passed the most comprehensive gun control legislation in decades in 2022, after a horrific school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. But it didn’t go far enough, Biden often says.
And as he campaigns for the 2024 election, Biden has made curbing gun violence a major campaign platform, elusive to Democrats even during the Obama era, as he fends off attacks from Republican challenger Donald Trump that he is soft on crime and anti-police.
Biden said this week in a statement after the North Carolina killings that the U.S. must “do more to protect our law enforcement officers. That means funding them — so they have the resources they need to do their jobs and keep us safe.”
The violence came just about two weeks after another fatal shooting of law enforcement officers in Syracuse, New York; Lieutenant Michael Hoosock and Officer Michael Jensen were killed while looking for a driver who fled a traffic stop. After his speech, Biden met relatives of both of the officers’ families.
Biden had already been scheduled to come to Syracuse to celebrate Micron Technology’s plans to build a campus of computer chip factories, but the local police union said officers were still coming to terms with the deaths and weren’t happy with the president’s trip and had hoped he would delay.
On Thursday, Biden will also travel on to Wilmington, where he’s announcing his administration is providing states an additional $3 billion to replace lead pipes across the country, building on $5.8 billion for water infrastructure projects around the country announced in February.
Money for the pipe replacement comes from one of the administration’s key legislative victories, the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law that Biden signed in 2021. The infrastructure law includes over $50 billion to upgrade America’s water infrastructure.
The new round of funding will help pay for projects nationwide as Biden seeks to replace all lead pipes in the country.
EPA estimates that North Carolina has 370,000 lead pipes, and $76 million will go to replace them statewide. Biden also will meet with faculty and students at a Wilmington school that replaced a water fountain with high levels of lead with money from the law.
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