Vice President Joe Biden used the Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday Monday to focus on the problems that he says exists between “police and the community.”
Speaking to the Organization of Minority Women, Biden said “the fear that your child may be presumed to be a gang member or a suspect or that someone in authority is looking at that child and seeing only a profile and not an individual.” He continued, “You see what can happen when your grandchild is seen as a threat.”
However, he also defended police officers saying, “I also worked with thousands of honorable women and men wearing a uniform — The people I grew up with my entire career.”
He targeted two main points on the relationship between minority communities and law enforcement.
“One, cops have a right to go home at night to see their families. And two, all minorities no matter what the neighborhood have a right to be treated with respect and dignity.”
He added that he and President Barack Obama believe, “we can help change the way police patrol their often dangerous streets, without jeopardizing the community.”
The remarks come after a security scare at Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home Saturday night — where shots were fired by a passing vehicle. The Vice President was not at home at the time. The Secret Service has since tightened security around the residence, and local police are investigating.
Secret Service Spokesman Robert Hoback told CNN the gunshots were fired outside “the established security perimeter,” and that, they “were heard by Secret Service personnel posted at the residence and a vehicle was observed by an agent leaving the scene at a high rate of speed.”