Trump says suspect in ambush shooting of LA sheriff’s deputies ‘must be hit hard’

President Trump called the suspect in the ambush shooting of two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies “animals” as he continued a three-day swing through western states to push his law-and-order platform.

“Animals that must be hit hard!,” the president posted on Twitter early Sunday morning after a campaign speech in Nevada.

And in another Tweet, Trump said if the deputies die the suspect should receive the ultimate penalty.

“If they die, fast trial death penalty for the killer. Only way to stop this!,” he said.

Trump’s Democratic challenger Joe Biden also addressed the shooting, calling for the shooter to be “brought to justice.”

“This cold-blooded shooting is unconscionable and the perpetrator must be brought to justice,” the former vice president wrote on Twitter. “Violence of any kind is wrong; those who commit it should be caught and punished.”

He also said that he and his wife, Jill Biden, “are keeping the deputies and their loved ones in our hearts and praying for a full recovery.”

The two deputies were reportedly clinging to life after being shot at point-blank range through the window of their patrol car on Saturday in Compton by a lone gunman.

The suspect in the shooting of the two officers – one a 31-year-old mother and the other a 24-year-old man – was still at large.

Law enforcement authorities said the two were “both still fighting for their lives.”

Protesters gathered outside the hospital and blocked the entrance and exit of the emergency room and chanted “we hope they die,” the sheriff’s department said in a tweet.

The posting said the department warned the protesters not to block the entrances and exits, saying “people’s lives are at stake when ambulances can’t get through.”

The president has hammered a message of law-and-order on the campaign trail as protests continue nationwide since the death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers in May of George Floyd.

Many of the protesters and members of the Black Lives Matter movement have called for racial justice and the defunding of police departments.

But some of the protests have become violent, and the president has called on the governors and mayors to quell that unrest and urged them to reach out to him for federal help.

In his campaign stop Saturday, Trump told his supporters that if Joe Biden is elected president in November, the “rioters, the anarchists win.”

In his campaign stop Saturday, Trump told his supporters that if Biden is elected president in November, the “rioters, the anarchists win.”