KENOSHA, Wis. _ Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden made a rare campaign trip to Wisconsin on Thursday during which he spoke by phone with paralyzed police shooting victim Jacob Blake, and met in person with his family members before heading to riot-torn Kenosha to say the country should seize the moment to rectify its institutional racism.
"I think we've reached an inflection point in American history. I honest to God believe we have an enormous opportunity _ that the screen, the curtain's been pulled back on just what's going on in the country, to do a lot of really positive things," Biden told a group of community residents at the Grace Lutheran Church in Kenosha, just a few blocks where several businesses burned during the violent unrest following Blake's shooting.
The former vice president, speaking through a mask, lashed out at President Donald Trump's rhetoric for fueling racial division.
"I thought you could defeat hate. Hate only hides. It only hides," he said. "And when someone in authority breathes oxygen under that rock, it legitimizes those folks to come on out, come out from under the rocks."
Biden's visit, occurring two days after Trump went to Kenosha to deliver his law-and-order reelection theme, was a test of the Democrat's campaign aims of trying to project himself as an empathetic leader in contrast to the brash Republican incumbent.
Before speaking in Kenosha, Biden met privately for an hour with the family of Jacob Blake, the 29-year-old Black man who was paralyzed after being shot in the back by a Kenosha police officer last month. The visit _ with Blake's father, two sisters, brother and members of his legal team at an airport building in Milwaukee _ came a day after Blake was moved out of an intensive care unit. Blake's mother joined the meeting with Biden by phone.
Inside Kenosha's Grace Lutheran Church, Biden spoke after listening to a handful of speakers from among about two dozen community members who were gathered and kept masked and socially distanced. The group included a firefighter, members of the law enforcement community, business owners and union members.
Seeking to contrast himself with Trump, Biden repeated the story of how he decided to get into the presidential contest after watching Trump's reaction to white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, being confronted by demonstrators, including one who was killed.
"He said there were very fine people on both sides. No president has ever said anything like that," Biden said. "Not all his fault, but it legitimatizes the dark side of human nature. And what it did, it also exposed what had not been paid enough attention to _ the underlying racism that is institutionalized in the United States. Still exists. Has existed for 400 years."
"The words of a president matter, no matter if they're good bad or indifferent. They matter. No matter how competent or incompetent a president is, they can send a nation to war, they can bring peace, they can make markets rise or fall and they can do things that I've observed can make a difference," he said.
"People are beginning to figure out who we are as a country. This is not who we are. This is not who we are," Biden said of the violence in Kenosha and other cities. "I am not pessimistic. I am optimistic about the opportunity if we seize it."
Biden also sought to emphasize his support for peaceful protest versus violent looting and rioting.
"'Protesting is protesting,' my buddy John Lewis used to say," Biden said referring to the late civil rights icon and congressman.
"But none of it justifies looting, burning or anything else. So regardless how angry you are, if you loot or you burn you should be held accountable as someone who did anything else. Period. It just cannot be tolerated across the board.
Biden spoke frequently of the work of the previous administration where he served as vice president under President Barack Obama. He called for increasing the nation's minimum wage, moving prison from punishment to reform, more affordable housing, better school funding to equalize educational opportunity and making it easier for minorities to get loans for start-up businesses.
"There's a lot we're able to do. The public is ready to do these things. I promise you," he said.
As Biden met inside the church with members of the community, Blake's uncle, Justin Blake, addressed the crowd gathered outside.
He reported that the family had a good meeting with the Democratic presidential nominee, and that before they could even bring up the topic of police reform, "Vice President Biden had already said it." Blake said the family would continue to push for a criminal indictment of Rusten Sheskey, the Kenosha police officer who shot his nephew.
Blake also rejected a statement U.S. Attorney General William Barr made in an interview Wednesday that Jacob Blake was "committing a felony and armed."
"I don't care what Barr says, he was inappropriate saying anything about my nephew, innuendos, gas lighting and outright lies are coming out of the White House," Blake shouted into a megaphone to the crowd gathered on the church's front lawn. "We don't have to lie to anyone. Everyone saw the video. My nephew had no weapon. All he received is bullets."
Blake was not in the family meeting with Biden and said he had not yet been briefed on details of the meeting. But he used the moment to call for not only police reform, but reparations for Black Americans and more investments in struggling minority communities.
"I want to talk about why we don't have jobs, why there's no money, why we continue to live in poverty when we built this country. In 2020, systemic racism is over, white privilege is over," Blake said to cheers. "We can grow as a people, we can grow together and not apart. We believe Vice President Biden is going to be part of that healing."
As Biden spoke inside, Glendora Cunningham sat in the shade in a yellow lawn chair hoping to catch a glimpse of the former vice president from a side street near the church's back exit.
Cunningham, 62, said she long has admired Biden and the work he did during Obama's administration and said she always loyally votes for Democrats. She said she hopes Biden gets elected so that the White House once again will offer a message of unity for the nation.
"Trump's not for us. He's for his rich friends. He's not for the poor, he's not for the poor. He's really not for anyone other than himself," Cunningham, a Kenosha resident, said. "I just hope Vice President Biden will bring peace to the world, because it's all about love. We need to get everyone in this country back together."
She called the Blake shooting "terrible" and said it was clear from the video "that they didn't have to pull on his shirt, tug him and then shoot him." Cunningham also criticized Trump for not even mentioning Blake's name during his visit to Kenosha earlier this week.
"The president didn't personally meet with the family. That is wrong," she said. "That makes a difference when you do that as president, show some sympathy. I'm glad Biden did it."
Inside the church, Porsche Bennett, an organizer for Black Lives Activists Kenosha, told Biden, "I have to give you the truth of the people and the truth of the matter is we are heavily angry."
"We protest to get our voices heard. We protest to show that not just Blacks are tired of what's going on," Bennett said, citing a diversity of support.
"We have yet to see action. I was always raised to go off action and not words because you'll be let down every single time. And the action we want are hold these officers accountable to the same times that we get held accountable to. If I was that officer, I would be in the Kenosha County jail right now," she said in reference to the Blake shooting.
Biden said that while he's long supported efforts to help the Black community, "I can't understand what it's like to walk out the door, or send my son out the door or my daughter and worry about just because they're Black they may not come back."
Biden said he spoke with Blake on the phone for about 15 minutes.
"He talked about how nothing was going to defeat him, how, whether he walked again or not, he was not going to give up," the former vice president said.
Biden said he came away from the meeting with the family with the "overwhelming sense of resilience and optimism to the kind of response that they're getting." He said Blake's mother told him that she was "praying for Jacob but I'm praying for the policeman as well. I'm praying that things change."
Angela Cunningham, a Black attorney in Kenosha, told Biden that when she saw a video of the Blake shooting, "I don't even have the words to describe what I thought," and texted friends that she knew "this is really going to be bad."
Cunningham said from her work as a lawyer and former prosecutor, "what I've seen in the criminal courts is unfair treatment between white defendants versus black and brown defendants. There's overpolicing in our communities." She said she would appreciate federal action to deal with that issue as well as protections for police from prosecution.
"We have never seen anything as devastating in our community," said Barb DeBerge, whose framing and artisan's shop suffered from broken windows in the aftermath of the Blake shooting but was kept from being burned down by a good Samaritan.
"I look at the buildings in or community that are gone and I don't think I really grieved as much as I feel I should. As a business owner, I have to keep going," she said. "We're lucky we're still standing."
Shortly before Biden's arrival in Kenosha, about a dozen Black Lives Matter protesters slowed traffic in front of the church as they marched in the middle of the street. A squad car trailing the group repeatedly asked them to move out of the street, which the protesters ignored.
"March with us!" the group chanted as a growing crowd of onlookers and journalists watched from either side of the street. The number of protesters grew to about 20 as Biden arrived.
Outside the church, Dave Kramer, 78, sat patiently in an American flag lawn chair on the sidewalk across the street from the church, hoping to catch a glimpse of the former vice president. A self-described "hard core" Democrat and the church's custodian, Kramer helped clean and sanitize the building early Thursday morning ahead of Biden's visit.
"Joe did a good job with Obama, and he can do a much better job than Trump. Trump just lies, mocks the handicap, he doesn't know how to do the job," Kramer said. "Trump just does whatever he wants to do and says whatever he wants to say. He doesn't want to hear the truth. Joe tells the truth and is a leader."
Kramer called the Blake shooting "wrong," and said the police officers "should have just wrestled him to the ground and cuffed him. There was no reason to shoot."
He was glad to hear the Democratic nominee was meeting with Blake's family, unlike Trump during his visit to the city two days earlier. Blake said Grace Lutheran's congregation is a diverse one of many races, but that recent Sunday mornings had only drawn seven or eight parishioners because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Everybody likes Biden. I'm hoping him coming here will help calm things down," Kramer said, as he took a drag on a Pall Mall cigarette. "I think he will."
"This all needs to stop. I hope he stops all of this," Kramer's wife, Jackie, 56, said of Biden. "We all need to come together, put the guns down and get all of this done and over with. It doesn't matter what color we are, we all bleed the same."
Earlier this week, Trump went to Kenosha and pledged law and order as a counter to "reckless far-left politicians" who "push the destructive message that our nation and our law enforcement are oppressive or racists."
Trump and Republicans have accused Biden and Democrats of avoiding criticism of violent protests and contending Democratic governors and mayors have failed to use strong law enforcement, including calling in the National Guard.
But Biden and Democrats have criticized the violence and instead accused Trump of engaging in divisive rhetoric that has fueled the racial strife behind protests motivated by police actions against Black people.
For Kenosha, it was the Blake shooting that sparked local protests and unrest. Following a subsequent protest, 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse of Antioch was charged with murder in the deaths of two protesters and attempted murder in the wounding of a third.
On Wednesday, Biden said he believed the vast majority of police officers are "good, decent (and) honorable" and that "they're the ones who want to get rid of the bad cops even more than anybody else does because it reflects on them."
He said that while the judicial system should "work its way," he also believed at "a minimum" that charges should be filed against Rusten Sheskey, the Kenosha police officer in the Blake case, as well as against Louisville, Kentucky, police involved in the March 13 death of healthcare worker Breanna Taylor in a no-knock warrant case.
"I believe the vast majority of the community writ large as well as law enforcement want to straighten things out, not inflame things. But this president keeps throwing gasoline on the fire every place he goes," Biden said.
"Protesting is a right and free speech is a right. But to engage in violence, burning, looting, the rest, in the name of protesting is wrong and that persons should be held accountable for their actions," Biden said.
As Biden made the trip to Wisconsin, his campaign debuted a new one-minute ad in the state, as well as in Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania featuring the candidate with running mate Sen. Kamala Harris of California aimed at addressing police violence against Black people.
"We have to let people know that we not only understand their struggle, but they understand the fact that they deserve to be treated with dignity. They've got to know we're listening," Biden says in the ad.
Trump has blamed Democratic governors and mayors for promoting lawlessness. Democrats have contended Trump's rhetoric and failure to denounce right-wing extremists has fueled racial tensions. Legal experts question whether Trump has the authority to withhold federal funding.
Biden's campaign has spent days evaluating a trip to Kenosha, which saw businesses looted and burned in the aftermath of the Blake shooting.
Since March, Biden largely has made appearances virtually from his home or at venues in his hometown of Wilmington in addition to a handful of trips to nearby Pennsylvania. The visit to Pittsburgh was an exception and his travel to Wisconsin points to a more expansive campaign schedule ahead.
Biden said Wednesday he wanted to get out more on the campaign trail but do it safely amid the pandemic.
"I think a president has the responsibility to set examples _ set the right example for how to get out. Not go out and not wear a mask and not have large crowds of people standing next to one another, not wearing masks, not being a potential cauldron for significant outbreaks of COVID," he said in reference to Trump's campaign style.
After meeting with medical experts, Biden said, "we've worked out a protocol where how I get in the plane, what kind of plane I get on, how it's sanitized, how I engage people."
Trump's 2016 victory in Wisconsin was integral for him winning the White House. Democrat Hillary Clinton has been criticized for not visiting the state and taking it for granted.
Biden also announced a record fundraising haul in August of $364.5 million between the Biden campaign, the Democratic National Committee and Democratic fundraising committees. More than half of that money _ $205 million _ came from small online donations, the campaign said.
The prolific fundraising month, which is more than Trump and Biden raised combined in July, is believed to have shattered the roughly $200 million monthly record Barack Obama set in 2008.
