South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a Democratic candidate for president, said that his “first serious mistake as mayor” was firing the first black man to head the city’s police force.
In 2007, Darryl Boykinds became the chief of the South Bend police force. Five years later, in 2012, federal investigators told Buttigieg, then a 29-year-old newly elected mayor, that they were investigating Boykins in a possible wiretapping scandal, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
Buttigieg kept the FBI information to himself, but two months later asked for Boykins’s resignation.
“I respect Chief Boykins’ decision to resign and am grateful for his years of dedicated service to our community,” Buttigieg said in a public statement at the time.
The South Bend Common Council members were upset they were not informed ahead of time of Buttigieg’s plans.
“To learn that Mayor Pete Buttigieg has known about a federal investigation taking place within the South Bend Police Department since January 2012 is truly disturbing,” council member Oliver Davis told the South Bend Tribune. “This shows a tremendous lack of respect and poor communication between the city’s administration and the South Bend Common Council.”
Members of the black community were also unhappy and Boykins later sued Buttigieg and chief of staff Mike Schmuhl for alleged “racial animus.” That lawsuit, along with another by police communications director Karen DePaepe, whose recordings of conversations led to the FBI being notified, for wrongful termination, led to settlements by the city in 2013 for $575,000.
In the days following the resignation, details of the alleged wiretap emerged, with Boykins castigating his officers for racist comments they made in what they believed were private phone conversations.
The officers complained to the FBI, which then triggered the investigation in spring 2011.
When Buttigieg asked for Boykins’ resignation, he had still not heard the tapes.
Buttigieg is one of the 16 people who have announced they are running for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 2020.
