Vice President Joe Biden on Monday condemned as “despicable” the police killings in Louisiana that left three officers dead and three others wounded.
Biden said the details aren’t all in, although authorities have said the shooter was a black former Marine who was associated with the Nation of Islam, and who wanted to target police.
“We don’t have the detail yet. We don’t know exactly how this occurred, what motive might have been behind it,” Biden said Monday, according to reports. “It’s a despicable act and it’s an attack on our very way of life at home.”
Americans “owe [police officers] big,” Biden said.
“My enduring thanks for every police officer who gets up in the morning and goes out on that night shift. And they look for one thing — they kiss their wife good-bye or their husband and they want to go home and tuck in their kids,” Biden continued. “They have a right to do that. They have a right to be able to be protected and we owe them big.”
Biden, who is on a tour of the Pacific, later flew to Sydney. He heads to New Zealand on Wednesday.
The vice president also spoke on the passing of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a controversial free trade agreement among the U.S. and 11 other countries, including Australia.
“It’s going to be hard to pass in both our countries — maybe not as hard for you; we’re going to try during the lame duck session of the United States congress,” Biden remarked. “Some of the changes — the growth of xenophobia in my country, the nature of the debate of the campaign that is preying on fear and not on hopes, who knows what it’s going to take?”
