Buttigieg abruptly suspends presidential campaign trail after fatal shooting by a police officer in his mayoral city of South Bend
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Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg said he abruptly changed his campaign schedule to return home to South Bend, Ind., where he serves as mayor, after a man died in a police-involved shooting.
Buttigieg canceled a trip on Monday to New York for an LGBTQ event, according to the campaign.
He held a late-night news conference after the early morning shooting that killed a black man identified by St. Joseph County prosecutors as 53-year-old Eric Jack Logan.
Buttigieg told reporters he has learned from criticism he received after previous officer-involved and use of force shootings about how important it was for leaders to get in front of the cameras even if there was not much information to relay.
“The relationship between the police officers who are sworn to keep this community safe and everybody who lives here is among the most important things we have as a city,” he said at the news conference.
“We will be striving to reach out to community members,” Buttigieg said, according to the AP, adding that a thorough investigation was underway after officers responded to reports early Sunday morning of a person going through cars.
The St Joseph prosecutor’s office, investigating the shooting, said police responded early on Sunday to a call about a suspicious person going through cars. A police officer confronted a man in a vehicle in an apartment building parking lot. The prosecutor’s office says the man exited the vehicle and approached the officer with a knife raised and the officer opened fire.
The man, identified as Eric Jack Logan of South Bend, died later at a hospital. Authorities initially said Logan had been 53 years old, then said he was 54 when he died. An autopsy was scheduled for Monday.
The officer, who was not identified, was treated for minor injuries.
Buttigieg has had a sometimes tense relationship with the black community in South Bend, dating back to his first term in office, when he fired the city’s first black police chief. He has also faced criticism for his handling of other police-involved shootings.
