Milwaukee

US presidential hopeful Joe Biden met Thursday with relatives of Jacob Blake, the black father shot multiple times by a white police officer in Wisconsin in an incident that sparked days of violent unrest.

The Democratic nominee and his wife Jill Biden entered a private meeting at the Milwaukee airport with several members of Blake's family, including his father and three siblings, the Biden campaign said.

Blake's mother participated via telephone.

The meeting comes two days after President Donald Trump also visited Kenosha, the nearby city where the shooting occurred.

During his trip Trump did not meet or speak with the family of Blake, who survived the shooting but is likely paralysed from the waist down.

While in Kenosha the president pushed a message of law and order as he met police, other first responders and residents whose businesses were damaged or destroyed in the violent protests that followed the shooting of 29-year-old Blake.

After talking with the Blakes, Biden travels south to nearby Kenosha where he will participate in a community meeting in an effort to "bring together Americans to heal and address the challenges we face," according to the campaign.

Racially charged unrest

Kenosha is one of the latest in a series of US cities shaken by racially charged unrest.

Violent demonstrations occurred in May and June in Minneapolis, in the neighboring state of Minnesota, and elsewhere after a police officer there killed an unarmed black man, George Floyd, by kneeling on his neck for more than eight minutes.

Protests also hit south Los Angeles this week after sheriff's deputies shot and killed a black man during a violent confrontation.

And demonstrations have rattled Portland, Oregon for weeks, prompting Trump to threaten to send in federal forces to cities where "weak" Democratic leaders have failed to quell violence.