Pete Buttigieg has been the surprise success of the 2020 presidential campaign. Polls showed him surging in key states and enchanted Democrats were forking over millions of dollars. Then came bad news from South Bend, where Buttigieg leads as mayor. A white police officer had shot and killed a black man. Buttigieg canceled several days of campaign events and rushed back to Indiana. Instead of showcasing Buttigieg’s ability to lead through a crisis, the shooting is exposing an Achilles’ heel of his candidacy: his frosty relationship with South Bend’s black residents, the Washington Post reports. Since arriving on Sunday, Buttigieg has alienated the family of the dead man, Eric Logan, 54, skipped a vigil at the scene of the shooting, and sought advice from outsiders, including the Rev. Al Sharpton.
On Wednesday, Buttigieg made his first extended public remarks about the shooting, appearing at South Bend police headquarters to lecture the city’s new cadet class about the importance of turning on their body cameras when they interact with members of the public. During Sunday’s shooting, the officer’s camera had been turned off. “This is his nightmare,” said Jorden Gieger, a community organizer who is close to Logan’s family. “You have to imagine the first thing he said to the police chief was, ‘You all had one job: Don’t shoot a black guy while I’m running for president.’ ” The shooting has handed Buttigieg the first significant challenge of his charmed campaign. To allies, his decision to leave the campaign trail and hold two days of private meetings signals deliberate leadership. To detractors, including many South Bend black activists, his actions show that he still doesn’t get it. Buttigieg boasts of “transforming” South Bend into one of the nation’s “best-run” cities, but 40 percent of black residents live below the poverty line.