Joe Biden on Monday suggested that police forces could train officers to shoot attackers in the legs in order to reduce potential fatalities.
There is “the idea that instead of standing there and teaching a cop when there’s an unarmed person, coming at him with a knife or something, to shoot him in the leg instead of in the heart,” Biden said. “There’s a lot of different things [policies] that can change.”
Biden made his remarks while meeting with African American community leaders at the Bethel AME Church in Wilmington, Del. The former vice president was discussing the widespread protests touched off by the killing of George Floyd, an African American man, at the hands of white police officers in Minneapolis, Minn.
Protests have spread from Minneapolis to major U.S. cities including New York, Chicago, Washington D.C., and Los Angeles. The demonstrations have been widely varied in makeup, with some instances of peaceful protests and others that have devolved into riots with widespread looting.
Members of Biden’s staff have donated to groups attempting to free jailed rioters on bail. Campaign spokesman Andrew Bates told Reuters that Biden opposes cash bail as the equivalent of a “modern day debtors prison.” It was not clear whether the donations were coordinated by the campaign or made individually.
President Trump condemned the donations on Saturday, saying they “would financially support the mayhem that is hurting innocent people and destroying what good people spent their lives building.”
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