Joe Biden Visits Kenosha Following Jacob Blake Shooting: Photos

KENOSHA, WI — Former Vice President Joe Biden embarked on a private whirlwind tour of Wisconsin, in speaking with the family of Jacob Blake in Milwaukee, a community conversation in Kenosha, and a voters' round table discussion with educators in Wauwatosa Thursday afternoon.

Biden spoke before a group of community members at Grace Lutheran Church in Kenosha early Thursday afternoon, spending about an hour at the church located blocks from where multiple buildings were burned out during civil unrest following the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

As a throng of supporters, media and a handful of detractors encircled the church from the outside hoping to get a glimpse of the former Vice President, Biden spoke intimately with the group gathered inside the church.

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Biden started his speech inside the church with a general observation: "The words of a president matter. No matter whether they're good, bad or indifferent, they matter," Biden said early on inside the private discussion inside the church. "No matter how competent or incompetent the president is, they can send a nation to war, they can make peace, they can make markets rise and fall, and they can do things that I've observed and make a difference by what they say."

Here are the scenes from inside the church as Biden spoke, and outside as onlookers, protesters and media filled the neighborhood during the former Vice President's stay.

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