Mayor Pete Buttigieg is on temporary campaign leave from his 2020 presidential bid after a South Bend police officer shot a black man.
“One of the reasons we’re communicating upfront right now is because of lessons learned from members of the community,” the Indiana Democrat said at a Sunday news conference with South Bend city officials.
“We’ve had prior cases of use-of-force incidents and officer-involved shootings where I hesitated, frankly, to get in front of cameras because we didn’t know very much and it was out of our hands. But what I learned, what I was told by people in the community is it’s important to open channels of communication,” he said.
Buttigieg held the press conference after a South Bend police officer shot and killed Eric Jack Logan, a 53-year-old black male, who allegedly approached the police officer with a knife.
The officer was answering a report of a “suspicious individual going through cars.” He is now on paid administrative leave.
Buttigieg said earlier Sunday that he is “working very hard” to win over black voters.
“We are working very hard to engage people across the party, but especially black voters,” Buttigieg said. “Anybody who has been on the short end of an equation of exclusion has a way to sympathize with people who’ve had different experiences with exclusion in this country.”
Buttigieg has admitted that his “first serious mistake as mayor” was firing the first African American to be South Bend’s police chief, Darryl Boykins. Boykins sued the city claiming racial discrimination.
Buttigieg is currently polling fourth at 7.8% in the Democratic presidential primary, according to RealClearPolitics.
