So all the yelling and emotional outbursts are because they don't trust him?

black men is most likely the reason for lack of trust.

While he is not finished long term, he will need to spend some time working on his Civil Rights bona fides. Yes, Biden also misstepped this week, but unlike Biden, Mayor Pete does not have a long history of advocating for Civil Rights. (even though Biden has not been perfect in his past, he does have a strong Civil rights history)

And he is not finished. At least he is honest which is more than I can say for the rest of them.

While we disagree on your former, I absolutely love his intellect and honesty. Mayor Pete will be a player on tbe national stage in the future.

The angry crowd doesn't want to make things better, they just want someone to blame for this incident. Pete couldn't win with them if he pulled out a revolver and shot the white cop.

My suggestion to him is: Pull out. You've already been accused of being too busy running for president to be an effective mayor of South Bend. You already accomplished something, you went from a blip in the polls to being a realistic possibility of being the Democratic nominee, despite your orientation and your age. You have a long future ahead of you, and if you are magnanimous in this moment, it will go down in history, and you will not simply be an also-ran in the 2020 election.

Go back and fix South Bend. Win re-election to mayor with an even stronger majority than last time, because you've earned the trust of African-American voters.

He has less than 6 months left in his term.

Until this incident there was nothing broken about South Bend. Unless the Mayor has god like powers he cannot control the actions of every police officer on the force.

He cannot inject himself into an independent investigation or it is tainted.

There is literally nothing for him to do other than insure the investigation is fair and wait.

but this is an awfully tough place for him to be.

Even if he loses he has demonstrated the intellectual gravitas to be a cabinet secretary. Pretty good for a guy who was a Mayor of a city of 100k no one heard of 6 months ago. He is playing with house money.

in his campaign, and I expect that he will continue to bring down that kind of cash as long as he's still in it.

I do agree that a high level Cabinet post is the best next step if he cannot get on the ticket, it would be extremely tough for him to be elected Governor or Senator in Indiana.

There are some progressive enclaves but slot of the state is less tolerant than Alabama.

My city has a black female mayor and a black police chief.

Many of their meetings with the black community have happened just like this one in South Bend.

n/t

politician that leads or help lead a diverse city. Go into every community of the city or state and listen to people's concerns, then show them that you are addressing those concerns.

This situation brings my mind back to the young Black man a couple of months back that said he had never seen or heard of Buttigieg in his part of town. Was that young man making stuff up? That now becomes a question that Buttigieg will be asked.

I honestly think that any momentum he was gaining among Blacks is gone. One of the absolutely worse things that can happen is for a White cop to kill a Black man or woman under questionable procedural citcumstances, in a city that Buttigieg leads.

I like his honesty and courage.

The guy who got killed was breaking into cars in the middle of the night and,
when approached by the cop,
he pulled out a BIG knife and approached the cop.

And now it's all Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s fault?

AA communities no longer believe something just because a police officer says so. His camera was not on so we have no idea if he was telling the truth about the situation or if he made it up. I don't blame AA communities for doubting the officer. Until police officers nationwide have consistently proven they are anything but racist death squads for POC, perhaps the rest of America should stop believing what police officers tell us. They have not earned our trust.

"Under Pete Buttigieg, racial tension has long plagued South Bend's Police Department."


https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/23/politics/pete-buttigieg-south-bend-police-department-officer-involved-shootings/index.html?no-st=1561326227

Then the cop had no other option, a knife is a deadly weapon and the response was justified.

than is convenient for cable-TV snap judgments. (People have at least started to mention that the victim was also known to have a drug problem).

Another complicating factor, at least for Mayor Pete, is that, with the whole thing under current external investigation, to be followed by internal investigation, both the police chief and Mayor Pete are somewhat constrained in what they can say publicly, at least until the investigations are complete. .

And yet another interesting wrinkle is that the partner of the (white) cop in question is an African-American guy, and I saw a video of him at the march strongly and emotionally defending his partner and calling some of the protestors a__holes.

The homicide is no less tragic for these extra bits, but. . this is not as simple as some people make out.

Social psychologists should have lots to chew on here.


Will my nervous system survive this election? I'd guess the odds at 50-50.

But if the cop hadn't turned off his camera, this would be over already. Like the mayor said, they're doing an investigation and we'll see how it comes out. What more can he say?

If he had we'd know the real story. I agree with the rest of your points. He's doing the best that he can under the circumstances.

but it wasn't. I'm also concerned that the SBPD has become less diverse under the mayor than it was before he took office.

When he fired the city's first African American police chief (however justifiable the reason was)
and replaced him with a white chief some time back, I think he'll come to realize that he should
have been more circumspect about his choice of the new appointee. He was uncharacteristically
tone deaf. Much of the resentment that engendered has now come home to roost with this incident.
I can completely understand the sentiments of the audience.

That being said, I don't have any doubt that Mayor Pete acted in good faith, but I hope he takes
this as a teaching moment going forward. In answer to this incident he has done what a leader
does; he went to face an audience of people who he knew would be incensed, and where he knew
he would take many lumps, but went anyway. That's about the best and most responsible way to
quell emotions, though the sentiments will linger.

Even the best, most engaged, most progressive mayor cannot control the actions of every police
officer in his/her city. I hope that there is indeed a very rigorous investigation of this officer; the
circumstances--among them his keeping his body camera off--smell to high heaven.

Unfortunately, Mayor Pete is all but certain to face a much steeper climb to winning the nomination.
I remain very enthusiastic about him and contributed more to his campaign last night, but it's not looking
too good for him now. His prospects of winning more of the African American vote are all but gone.

Hope I'm wrong...

of color have left the department and the last six hires have been white. What the hell is going on?

He's got to know this has happened. Is this what he wants? And then there was the bungled police chief matter.

Can't get around how bad this whole situation looks, and now this killing. Doesn't look good wanting to run the country but all this stuff is happening in a small city under his watch.

The story being out out is factual, deadly force is justified when threatened by any deadly weapon.

The problem is, is that the officer never turned on his body cam so we can't be certain. He might be telling the truth but without the footage we just don't know.

Conditions were met to trigger the camera. Expecting an officer to manually start recording in a life threatening situation isn't going to always be practical either. Unfortunately, we are at a point now where people are expected to prove their innocence in the absence of being able to prove guilt.

(offered by the manufacturer) wasn’t even installed.

Hope they resolved that.

the time. Storage is cheap and can be managed. It gains nothing but suspicion when a body cam is off. The most important job is our law enforcement. Raise their pay and always two cop teams. Furthermore a law enforcement gun has never been designed.And again raise their pay and always two person teams. More K9 units. Crime and violence rests mainly with lower incomes. Make $20/hour the absolute minimum wage with credits or cash complimenting wages to reach $20/hour with shortfalls being made up by filing income tax returns.

There are other tools in law enforcement arsenal that they could have used instead of lethal force.

It's disgusting to think that law enforcement is there to provide an eye-for-an-eye response. That's not their role or job.

I've been a Buttigieg supporter since he burst onto the scene. I still am. He is demonstrating leadership.

That is trained into every law enforcement and military member that undergoes Justified Use of Force training. Guns and knives are equal in the threat matrix.

If guns and knives are equal, then the threat matrix needs to be changed. It's nonsensical and endemic of our militarized police system.

Nobody got shot... or killed. We sometimes all endured the terrible effects of mace or pepper spray, but no one died... no one!!

The reasonable expectation is you are going to get shot.

This isn't an eye for an eye response. This is about the safety of the officer and the community.

threatened, she shoots and shoots to kill. Such a range of objects can be deadly if used as a weapon. This was a knife and no they don’t wait until a person is within range to kill with it.

There was a great training film out based on a real incident in which an officer, a former sniper in the war, could not gain total control over a suspect in a stop or get compliance, did not want to shoot him, and within no time at all the guy went in his pickup, got a gun and killed the officer.

Not a lot of time to deliberate, to ponder what the person with the knife has in mind, if it’s
really lethal, or to know if the knife wielder is going to threaten your partner or a civilian’s
life.

We don’t know if this shooting was justified or not.

He's facing the issues with the police department head on, and is listening to his constituents. They are right to be angry. Too many African American citizens live in fear of the police.

Buttigieg didn't create the issues in South Bend, but I believe he's going to work hard at fixing them. That's what a real leader does.

I concur with every word. This is obviously going to be a very tumultuous period for Mayor Pete but he's inserted himself at the center of the maelstrom and he wants to make things right (although he can never make up for the loss of the man's life, unfortunately).

Depending on how things transpire and conditional on strong performances from Pete at the debates, I think he could be flying high again months from now.

Remember, Elizabeth Warren had little traction and she was being mocked by many (mostly on the right but even some on the left) after that Indian heritage controversy. Although some insisted she was finished, she stayed the course, bore down and focused on the issues that mattered. She's a juggernaut now.

Don't write Mayor Pete off yet!

He's amazing and I know he'll do his very best to heal rifts with the community.

It's like he's a messenger from a progressive future.

Bernie Sanders in 2016 was constantly heckled and attacked by BLM demonstrators but he just kept soldiering with his campaign. That’s kind of what Buttigieg needs to do. It’s still very early in the campaign and a lot of things will happen.

with a very similar tone to yours. I was still writing while you were making yours go live.

He’s great and I hope he survives this.

Only way out is to move or get a non elected position, like a cabinet post, or be VP.

Link to tweet

He has already said that he couldn’t get the job done. It would be hard to find too many mayors in this country that don’t have the exact situation. The problem is the police, and that’s a big problem and by big I mean huge.

It was pretty hard going. The city clearly has racial issues. At least Mayor Pete listened to them. Hopefully, there will be solutions before too long.