Vice President Joe Biden, flanked by Attorney General Eric Holder and actress Mariska Hargitay, gestures as he speaks about reducing domestic violence, Wednesday, March 13, 2013, at the Montgomery County Executive Office Building in Rockville, Md. (AP)
Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced new grant money to help reduce domestic violence homicides -- and differentiated from (while still condemning) "your garden-variety slap across the face."
Biden, with Attorney General Eric Holder, said the administration was giving $2.3 million in grants to 12 communities across the U.S. to identify potential victims and monitor offenders.
"We’ve learned that certain behaviors on the part of an abuser portend much more danger than other behaviors," Biden said. "For example, if an abuser has attempted to strangle his victim, if he's threatened to shoot her, if he's sexually assaulted her, and there’s a number of other signs, about eight others. These are tell-tale signs to say this isn’t your garden-variety slap across the face, which is totally unacceptable in and of itself."
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Editor's note: This story and video have been updated to reflect the complete sentence and thought of Vice President Biden. Our original post was meant to note the "odd" choice of the phrase, which others have noted as well. We still maintain it was an odd and, as some have called, "clumsy" phrase, but Biden deserves to have his full comments noted. The outlet that originally posted the clip has apologized for the initial edit.
