Bosa

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/south...b0aa375f4cc9f2

A lawyer for the family of a black man fatally shot by a white police officer in the Indiana city where Pete Buttigieg is mayor on Friday accused the Democratic presidential candidate of failing to be aggressive enough in setting rules to curb police misconduct.

Attorney Brian Coffman said he’s preparing a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city of South Bend on behalf of the family of 54-year-old Eric Logan, who was shot by an officer Sunday.

“It is overall total acceptance of this behavior by the South Bend Police Department and the city itself,” Coffman said in an interview.

Logan’s death prompted Buttigieg to cancel much of his out-of-state campaigning this week and drew attention to his struggles appealing to black voters. Buttigieg returned to campaigning Friday with a trip to Miami, but skipped a South Carolina event attended by 21 other Democratic presidential candidates to fly home for a Friday evening community march. South Bend is a city of about 100,000 people 150 miles (241 kilometers) north of Indianapolis.

Authorities have said Sgt. Ryan O’Neill was looking for a man reportedly breaking into cars about 3:30 a.m. Sunday when he fired one shot that hit Logan and another that missed after Logan threatened him with a knife.

Logan’s family and others in the African American community have reacted with anger over no video existing of the confrontation because O’Neill’s dash and body cameras weren’t activated.

Buttigieg, who became mayor in 2012, said Wednesday that he was “extremely frustrated” that O’Neill’s body camera wasn’t turned on. On Tuesday, he directed his police chief to remind officers of a department policy that cameras must be on during any interaction with civilians.

Prosecutor’s office investigators said O’Neill’s body camera wasn’t automatically activated because he was driving slowly without emergency lights while looking through an apartment building parking lot for someone possibly breaking into cars.

Coffman said he believed Buttigieg was trying to now say the right things, but that such actions should’ve been taken before.

“That’s just being reactive, it’s not being proactive and making sure this never happened and having rules in place for South Bend police officers and body cameras,” Coffman said.

Mayor’s office spokesman Mark Bode declined to comment Friday on Coffman’s remarks or the potential lawsuit, saying the city was awaiting results of the investigation being overseen by the county prosecutor.

Logan didn’t have any convictions for serious violent crimes, but was released from prison in June 2018 after serving a sentence for a 2009 conviction in South Bend on three felony counts of dealing cocaine or narcotics, according to Indiana Department of Correction records.

Logan’s family believes a federal investigation of the shooting should be sought, rather than relying on one overseen by the county prosecutor’s office, which works closely with the city police department, or a police internal review, Coffman said.

“It is very tough to believe the left arm of a police department telling you what the right arm did wrong,” he said.

Bosa

Pete Buttigieg Leaves Campaign Trail After Fatal Police Shooting. Reality Rears Its Head.


SOUTH BEND, Ind. — While his 2020 rivals mingled with large friendly crowds at a Democratic fish fry in South Carolina Friday night, Mayor Pete Buttigieg found himself somewhere very different, wading into an emotional knot of protesters at the South Bend Police Department, some of whom cursed him, interrupted him and shouted a list of demands through a megaphone feet from his face.

Mr. Buttigieg abruptly pulled himself from the presidential campaign trail on Friday for a second time this week, after a South Bend police officer fatally shot a black man last weekend.

At a time when candidates prefer their events as staged and predictable as possible, the result was a chaotic show of raw emotion and anger with grieving black residents facing off with the preternaturally calm 37-year-old mayor.

And during a week when Congress held hearings on reparations for African-Americans and rivals attacked former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. for his remarks about civility and segregationists, a racially explosive crisis at home threatens to upend Mr. Buttigieg’s significant primary momentum days before the first Democratic debates.

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“Part of my job is to promote healing,” Mr. Buttigieg told reporters before dropping off the campaign trail in Miami on Friday morning, explaining he needed to engage “members of the community, especially the black community, who are concerned with whether they can trust the police.”

Once he arrived at the protest on a charter flight, around 6:30 p.m., healing was far from the minds of most in the crowd, a mix of bereaved relatives of the dead man, Eric Logan, family members of others injured or killed in police encounters and masked protesters in black waving signs reading, “Who do you call when police murder?”

“You’re running for president and you want black people to vote for you? That’s not going to happen,” a woman shouted.

“Ma’am, I’m not asking for your vote,” Mr. Buttigieg said.

The mayor responded point by point to the 10 demands, agreeing to some — such as requesting the Department of Justice appoint an outside prosecutor — and coolly explaining reasons for rejecting others. “The first demand concerns the firing of police officers,” he said. “The laws of the state are, that’s decided by a board of safety.”

When he was interrupted, he replied, “Could I continue responding?”

Mr. Logan’s mother, Shirley Newbill, was ushered in front of the mayor.

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“Y’all ain’t doing a damn thing about me or my son or none of these people out here,” she told him.

Before Mr. Buttigieg could respond, another woman said, “Are you really here because you care about blacks, or are you just here because you want to be the president?”

“This is my home, too,” Mr. Buttigieg replied.

Mr. Logan, 54, was fatally shot by an officer responding to reports of a man breaking into cars downtown. The authorities said Mr. Logan flashed a knife and lunged at the officer, who shot him once in the abdomen. But the officer had not activated his body camera. Mr. Logan’s family questioned why he was taken to the hospital in a police car rather than an ambulance.

A lawyer for the dead man’s family said this week that he planned to file a federal civil rights lawsuit against the City of South Bend and the officer involved. He also said, in an interview, that he had advised a daughter of Mr. Logan’s, who has become a point person for the family, not to speak with Mr. Buttigieg.

Oliver Davis, a black member of the South Bend City Council at the protest, pointed to more than half a dozen incidents since Mr. Buttigieg took office in 2012 of police misconduct, some resulting in fatalities, that Mr. Davis said had shredded trust in the police.

“This is what people feel: We’re tired,” Mr. Davis said.

But he acknowledged that in recent days Mr. Buttigieg has been more proactive after receiving criticism for dropping from public sight for 48 hours earlier in the week

At one point, a woman asked: “Do you believe black lives matter? Can you say to us today in front of all these cameras that black lives matter?”

In one of his only heated replies of the night, Mr. Buttigieg nearly shouted, “Of course black lives matter.”

“Fire your cops!” a man replied.

“What matters about a black life to you, Mayor Pete?” a woman shouted.

Michael Patton, president of the South Bend N.A.A.C.P., who stood quietly aside, praised the mayor, who is mostly known as a whiz kid versed in data and policy, for displaying empathy to both the Logan family and the police officer who shot him, Ryan O’Neill.

“I think we saw the human side of the mayor,” he said.

Earlier in the day, Mr. Patton told CNN that Mr. Buttigieg had his endorsement for president. “He’s led our community, South Bend, well, and I believe —— I have full confidence he could lead our nation as well,” he said.

After nearly an hour, the group of about 100 set off on a march to the County-City Building downtown, which houses the 14th-floor mayor’s office. Mr. Buttigieg, in suit pants, a white shirt and a blue tie, walked at the head of one group, while across the street other marchers shouted profanities about the police. Emotions cooled somewhat by the time the crowd reached City Hall.

“I want you to know we’re serious about fixing this,” the mayor told the crowd. He promised new policies would be developed and implored people to attend a town hall event he would lead.

“You’ve got to show up, not just online,” he said. “And when you show up, you will be heard.”

There was some applause.

Bosa

Bladewire

The mayor isn't responsible for what the cops do it's the chief of police.

The "outrage" is a political stunt to throw shade on Buttigieg .

crockett

I think it's more along the lines that they are pissed off and want to blame anyone. He is the Mayor so they will blame him.

They have a right to be pissed off and this entire "militarization" of police forces needs to end. We need to put cops back into Barney Fife uniforms.

This whole giving them Military surplus shit and letting them dress up like they are special forces in their Tacticool outfit attracts the absolute wrong type of people for the job. Instead of getting people who want to serve their communities they instead are getting guys who think they are Seal Team 6 and treat everyone they interact with as people who are there to kill them..

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Bladewire

I agree 100%

That's one of the things I loved about Australia you barely ever saw a cop ever. Australians treat cops like school nerds & shout shit at them and Tau t them and the cop can't do anything about it. There's no cops on the side of the road trying to get people for speeding etc. etc. at least not where I lived in Surfers Paradise Queensland.

This bullshit of cops killing unarmed people with their hands up in the air and getting away with it has got to end.

OneHungLo

That would work in your average Podunk town that's 99% white but you're dealing with vicious animals in these inner-cities that take a life without a second thought.

OneHungLo

Tells us about the Demographics of Australia

RedFred

Nazi's love it when govt agents kill it's own citizens.

Bladewire

The alt-right terrorists are shooting white people dead in churches and they want us to focus on blacks & Mexicans instead of their white on white genocide.

RedFred

Police officers killed 1,129 people in 2017.

More people died from police violence in 2017 than the total number of U.S. soldiers killed in action around the globe (21). More people died at the hands of police in 2017 than the number of black people who were lynched in the worst year of Jim Crow (161 in 1892). Cops killed more Americans in 2017 than terrorists did (four). They killed more citizens than airplanes (13 deaths worldwide), mass shooters (428 deaths) and Chicago’s “top gang thugs” (675 Chicago homicides).