Jamaal Bowman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Slam Biden Over Daunte Wright Response

Two of New York's most high-profile progressive representatives, Jamaal Bowman and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, chastised President Joe Biden for his response to a police shooting death. They felt he prioritized property damage over the life of the 20-year-old Black man killed in the Sunday incident.

Bowman directly criticized Biden for "jump[ing] to defend property before Black Americans" after Biden on Monday offered a brief Oval Office response to the Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, shooting death of 20-year-old Daunte Wright.

Biden acknowledged seeing the "graphic" bodycam footage that shows Wright being shot to death by 25-year police veteran Kimberly Potter during a traffic stop Sunday. Looting broke out in the Minneapolis area after video surfaced of Wright's shooting. The city is still awaiting the outcome of former police Officer Derek Chauvin's murder trial in the death of George Floyd last May.

Biden urged those angered by the latest police shooting of a Black man not to loot and to instead pursue "peaceful protests," a remark that immediately drew the ire of Bowman and Ocasio-Cortez. Anger about the shooting was compounded Monday after Brooklyn Center police officials characterized the incident as an "accidental discharge," claiming Potter had attempted to draw a taser, not a firearm.

"In the meantime, I want to make it clear again: there is absolutely no justification, none, for looting. No justification for violence. Peaceful protests? Understandable," Biden said in response to Wright's "tragic" shooting, sitting alongside Vice President Kamala Harris in the White House.

Tossing Biden's own phrasing back at him on Twitter late Monday, Bowman ridiculed the president's response as aloof. He shared a video clip of Biden's response in a tweet that was widely shared by fellow progressives, including Ocasio-Cortez.

"There's no justification for killing someone over expired plates. There's no justification to mention damage to property before the damage police killings inflict on Black America," Bowman tweeted Monday.

"Every police shooting gives Black America a reason to mistrust the government. But so does every president who jumps to defend property before Black Americans," Bowman added in a separate tweet Monday.

Biden's response urged looters, protesters or any American upset by the latest police shooting to "wait and see what the entire investigation" finds. "It was a really tragic thing that happened...The question is: Was it an accident or was it intentional? That remains to be determined by a full-blown investigation."

Newsweek reached out to Bowman's congressional office as well as the White House for additional reaction or remarks Tuesday morning.