KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — The Latest on the Aug. 23 police shooting of Jacob Blake (all times local):
2:20 p.m.
President Donald Trump is meeting with law enforcement officers at a local high school as part of his visit to Kenosha, Wisconsin.
The city saw unrest after a police officer shot Jacob Blake on Aug. 23. A 17-year-old has been charged with killing two demonstrators on Aug. 25. Trump has suggested he was acting in self-defense.
Trump is trying to portray himself as a friend of police and to place Democrats on the defensive. He says he came to thank law enforcement and decried property destruction during last week’s protests, saying, “You don’t have a democracy when then happens.”
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has accused Trump of causing divisions that have ignited violence.
Before meeting with law enforcement, Trump stopped at a burned-out store where the smell of smoke still hung in the air. He remarked that the store had been there for 109 years and that “we’re going to help them a lot.”
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11 a.m.
President Donald Trump says he’s heading to Kenosha, Wisconsin, to thank law enforcement and the National Guard “for a job well done.”
The city has seen protests since police shot Jacob Blake seven times in the back on Aug. 23. Blake’s family says the 29-year-old Black man is paralyzed from the waist down. A 17-year-old is accused of fatally shooting two demonstrators on Aug. 25.
Wisconsin Democratic Gov. Tony Evers deployed the National Guard to quell demonstrations. But Trump is taking credit for the deployment, even though his demand that Guard troops be used came a day after Evers had activated them. Trump asserts that Kenosha “would have been burnt to the ground by now” if it weren’t for the National Guard.
Trump also told reporters before boarding Air Force One that he didn’t know if he would speak with a member of the Blake family during his visit.
