CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Donald Trump returns to the swing state of North Carolina on Friday to speak at a gathering of the Fraternal Order of Police, seeking to portray himself as a tougher on crime than his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, in the final months of his campaign.

Trump is scheduled to speak at the FOP’s National Board of Trustees’ fall meeting in Charlotte. The FOP, the world’s largest organization of law enforcement officers, supported Trump’s re-election campaign in 2020. Its president, speaking on behalf of its 373,000 members, said Trump had “made it crystal clear that he stands behind us.”

The images of the former president and Republican candidate in a room full of police officers provide Trump with a platform to contrast their support with his characterization of Harris, a former San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general who Trump has called the “ringleader” of a “Marxist attack on law enforcement” across the country.

“Kamala Harris will bring crime, chaos, destruction and death,” Trump said in Michigan last month, one of many generalizations about a Harris-led America. “You will see levels of crime like you have never seen before. … I will bring law, order, security and peace.”

Harris has flaunted her status as her home state’s former chief prosecutor by regularly saying, “I know Donald Trump’s types,” after speaking about “offenders of all kinds” in her previous roles.

She received help in delivering this message from two police officers who were at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 and became Democratic surrogates. Both campaigned for her at various events across the country and reflected on that day.

“Three and a half years later, the fight for democracy is still going on,” former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn told a group of voters in Arizona this summer. “It’s still going on. Donald Trump is still that threat. His deranged, self-centered, obsessive pursuit of power is the reason violent insurrectionists attacked my colleagues and me.”

At the Democratic National Convention last month, former Capitol Police Sergeant Aquilino Gonell – who is retiring in 2022 due to injuries he sustained that day – said Trump “called in our attackers. … He betrayed us.”

Trump’s courting of support for police officers also contradicts the sympathy he has shown for those who have defied police orders, including promising to pardon those accused of beating police officers during the January 6 siege of the Capitol.

Judges and juries hearing those cases heard police officers describe how they were brutally attacked while defending the building. In all, about 140 police officers were injured that day, making it “probably the largest mass attack on police in a single day” in American history, said Matthew Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

More than 900 people have pleaded guilty to crimes related to January 6, and about 200 more have been convicted in court. More than 950 people have been convicted, about two-thirds of whom received prison sentences ranging from a few days to 22 years.

Trump has long expressed his support for the Jan. 6 defendants. At a rally in Ohio in March, he stood on stage with his hand raised as a recorded chorus of inmates jailed for their roles in the Jan. 6 attack sang the national anthem. A speaker urged the crowd to rise “for the horribly and unfairly treated hostages of Jan. 6.”

“These J6 fighters were fighters, but the reality is they are victims more than anything of what happened,” Trump said at a rally in Nevada this summer. He also falsely claimed that police welcomed the rioters to the Capitol, telling the crowd, “Go in, go in, go in, go in.”

“What a trap,” Trump said. “What a terrible, terrible thing.”

The FOP has not yet announced its official endorsement for the 2024 election, but other police groups have already thrown their weight behind Trump. At another rally in Charlotte in July, Trump won the backing of the National Organization of Police Organizations, whose leadership praised his “unwavering and very public support for our men and women on the front lines.”

In February, the International Union of Police Associations endorsed Trump, calling his support for police officers “unprecedented.” Last month, he won the endorsement of the Arizona Police Association, just days after the group endorsed Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego in the state’s Senate race over Trump ally Kari Lake.

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You can reach Meg Kinnard at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP