Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden agreed with the recent firing of a police officer who had suggested on social media that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez should be shot, comparing the matter to a school principal who says they don’t like students of color in their school.
“When a police officer says they should be shot, that’s totally, thoroughly, irresponsible,” Mr. Biden, the 2020 Democratic presidential front-runner, said on Tuesday in an interview with WDSU in Louisiana.
“It’s like if a school principal said, ’I don’t like all those black kids or all those Cubans in my school’ — that person should not be the principal,” he said. “The cop says [she] should be shot, as I understand, something to that effect — should have been fired.”
A Louisiana police officer was recently fired after he had posted on Facebook that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, New York Democrat, is a “vile idiot [who] needs a round…and I don’t mean the kind she used to serve” as a bartender. Another officer who “liked” the post was also fired.
“No matter who they said it is — ’I don’t like someone, we should go shoot him.’ That is what is happening because we’re losing the soul of this country,” Mr. Biden said.
“We got a president who does similar things — not saying shot, but the idea that we’re ramping up this sort of racist notion about how to respond to anybody we disagree with — always about the other. And it’s wrong,” he said.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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