Former President Bill Clinton speaks during day two of the Democratic National Convention at Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Tuesday. President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will speak on Wednesday during the DNC's third day, which will be partly focused on U.S. mass shootings. Photo by Ray Stubblebine/UPI |
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PHILADELPHIA, July 27 (UPI) -- President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will be the headline speakers in Philadelphia on Wednesday during the third day of the Democratic National Convention which in part will focus on U.S. mass shootings.
Beginning at 4:30 p.m EDT at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, the DNC's first scheduled speaker will be Erica Smegielski, daughter of Dawn Hochsprung -- the principal of Sandy Hook Elementary who was killed while trying to protect her students. The Sandy Hook, N.J., massacre, which occurred in December 2012, resulted in the deaths of 20 children and six school employees by gunman Adam Lanza. Smegielski has worked as a gun-control advocate since her mother's death.
Smegielski will be followed by Felicia Sanders and Polly Sheppard, two of the three survivors of South Carolina's Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church shooting in Charleston carried out by Dylann Roof. Nine people were killed in the massacre that began at the end of a Bible study session.
Jamie Dorff is also scheduled to speak. She is the wife of U.S. Army helicopter pilot Patrick Dorff, who died in 2004 during a search and rescue mission in northern Iraq.
Biden will be followed by Obama, who officially endorsed Hillary Clinton in early June. Clinton will be the DNC's last speaker on Thursday when she formally accepts the Democratic Party's nomination for the 2016 presidential election.
Speaking on Tuesday, former President Bill Clinton presented his wife as a lifelong force for positive change for family, friends and ordinary Americans.
"If you were sitting where I'm sitting ... at every dinner conversation, every lunch conversation, on every long walk, this woman is never satisfied with the status quo," the former president said, calling Hillary Clinton "the best damn change-maker I have met in my entire life."
