After shootings, Joe Biden says America is "wounded by all of these deaths"
Vice President Joe Biden is urging Americans to stay united, after a week of tragic shooting deaths "touched the soul of the nation."
"As Americans, we are wounded by all of these deaths," Biden said in a video released Saturday. "It's on all of us to stand up, to speak out about disparities in our criminal justice system -- just as it's on all of us to stand up for the police who protect us in our communities every day."
Addressing the past week's three highly public shooting incidents -- the five police officers killed in Dallas, and the two black men shot and killed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Falcon Heights, Minnesota -- and the escalating racial tensions across the country, Biden called for communal healing and "courage" in the face of such trials.
"In the days and weeks ahead, we'll continue offering our thoughts and prayers to provide comfort to the broken-hearted families," he said. "But they will only be redeemed by the courage of our actions that honor their memories."
Speaking specifically to the violence in downtown Dallas Thursday night, the vice president honored the handful of officers that gave their lives protecting demonstrators in the area.
"Those killed and wounded were protecting the safety of those who were peacefully protesting against racial injustices in the criminal justice system," he said. "Those who were marching against the kind of shocking images we saw in St. Paul and Baton Rouge -- and have seen too often elsewhere -- of too many black lives lost."
"I believe the Dallas Police Department is one of the finest in the nation -- and this incredibly diverse city can bridge any divide," Biden continued, using the words of Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings to caution that Americans should "use our words carefully" and "act with unity, not division."
"As Dallas Police Chief David Brown -- one of the leading chiefs in America -- said, 'There are no words to describe the atrocity that occurred to our city, all I know is that this must stop, this divisiveness between our police and our citizens,'" he added.
In a Republican address, Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pennsylvania, defended a recently blocked bill on so-called "sanctuary cities," which help protect undocumented immigrants from being deported by federal agents.
"Sanctuary cities impose terrible costs on our communities, on our country, including increased crime, and -- tragically -- lost lives," Toomey said in a video released Saturday. "We should withhold some federal taxpayer dollars from these cities until they reverse course and start cooperating with federal immigration officials to prevent the release of these dangerous criminals."
Toomey's bill, the Stop Dangerous Sanctuary Cities Act, meant to strip federal funds from such cities. It failed to pass earlier this week in the Senate, which voted 53-44 to advance the legislation to the floor. It needed 60 votes.
The issue of "sanctuary cities," Toomey said, is "not about immigration.
"The vast majority of immigrants in America would never commit any such crime -- but any very large group of people is going to include some terrible people within it," he said. "And with about 11 million illegal immigrants in our country, there will be some who are violent criminals."
"It makes no sense to give those violent criminals any safe haven," Toomey said.