Buttigieg wants outside investigations of South Bend police shooting
The Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg has faced criticism from angry black residents at an emotional town hall meeting in South Bend, Indiana, a week after a white police officer fatally shot a black man in the city where he is mayor.
Buttigieg agreed that an external investigation should take place into the fatal shooting of Eric Logan, a 54-year-old black man, by a white police officer, Sgt Ryan O’Neill. Prosecutors investigating said that the shooting was not recorded by O’Neill’s body camera.
The presidential hopeful said he would send a letter to the federal Department of Justice’s civil rights division and notify the local prosecutor that he’d like an independent investigator appointed. He conceded that his administration had failed on two key initiatives.
“The effort to recruit more minority officers to the police department and the effort to introduce body cameras have not succeeded and I accept responsibility for that,” Buttigieg said.
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The town hall grew contentious when some community members questioned whether the mayor had done enough to reform the police department in the city of 100,000 people, which is about a quarter black.
“Get the people that are racist off the streets,” one woman in the audience said. “Reorganize your department. You can do that by Friday.”
Buttigieg acknowledged the South Bend police department had fallen short in recruiting minority police officers and introducing body cameras.
Buttigieg left the campaign trail after the shooting to respond to issues of race and policing. On Friday he left other Democrats in South Carolina and flew back to South Bend, where a tense meeting ensued with family members of the dead man and protesters. He went back to South Carolina to speak alongside other candidates on Saturday, then returned home again.
Buttigieg, 37, has surged from obscurity to regularly place in the top five of national and state polls of the sprawling Democratic presidential field. On Sunday the realclearpolitics.com average of national polls placed him equal fourth on 7.1% with the California senator Kamala Harris.
Former vice-president Joe Biden, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren were in the top three slots.
Buttigieg’s national visibility has placed greater scrutiny on his record in office in South Bend, particularly with regard to police affairs.
