Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg is skipping some events this weekend in the key early primary state of South Carolina as the South Bend, Indiana mayor continues to manage the politically fraught aftermath of the police shooting of a black man.
Buttigieg was slated to attend the Blue Palmetto Dinner in Columbia and House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn’s fish fry nearby, where a slew of other 2020 candidates are set to attend. But Buttigieg, 37, is instead returning to South Bend where he has spent much of the past week out of the public eye amid an ongoing investigation into the police shooting of 54-year-old Eric Logan, a black man, early Sunday morning while responding to a call about a man breaking into cars.
“He will be in South Bend to be with the community and participate in a march this evening,” campaign spokesman Chris Meagher told the Washington Examiner.
South Bend Police Sgt. Ryan O’Neill says he shot at Logan because he had approached with a knife. The city’s police have body and dashboard cameras, but the shooting was not recorded — a fact that Buttigieg on Wednesday said frustrated him.
After the Sunday incident, Buttigieg took some time off from campaigning to return to South Bend to manage the fallout from the shooting, canceling fundraisers in California that were scheduled for Monday and Tuesday.
That came ahead of this weekend’s South Carolina Democratic events, when many candidates will essentially introduce themselves to voters in a state where the bulk of the primary electorate is African American. The episode has a potential to be the topic of pointed questions to Buttigieg in candidate forums this weekend and beyond.
The police shooting also underscores Buttigieg’s challenge in appealing to black voters. Last week, a Democratic primary poll in South Carolina found Buttigieg with 6% support among black voters, up from 0% in May. Former Vice President Joe Biden received 52% support among black voters in the poll.
Buttigieg sent an email Thursday evening to his supporters about the shooting’s aftermath.
“While the case is still being investigated, we do know this: a South Bend family is enduring the crushing and inconsolable anguish that far too many Black and Latino families across the country have shared. Our city, and our nation, demands answers about the dynamic between our police officers and the communities they are sworn to protect,” Buttigieg said in the email.
At a press conference Buttigeg held with community leaders Wednesday, a spokesman for the Logan family asked Buttigieg why he had not talked to Logan’s family more. Buttigieg said that the lawyer for Logan’s daughter had advised her to not speak to the mayor.
Brian Howey, who writes about Indiana politics on HoweyPolitics.com, told the Washington Examiner that some of the rhetoric in the community surrounding the shooting has been “incendiary” and that Logan’s family has criticized the mayor’s response to the situation.
Howey said that Buttigieg made the right call by canceling fundraisers and returning to the city. His absence would have been noted. Last month, the South Bend Tribune calculated that Buttigieg spent nearly half of his time from February through May out of town, much of that campaigning.
“There’s a reason an Indiana mayor has never been elected governor and why we’ve never had an American mayor go directly into the White House,” Howey said. “Running a city is a messy business.”
After spending Friday evening in South Bend, Buttigieg will return to South Carolina Saturday morning for a Democratic convention in Columbia and a Planned Parenthood forum.
— Caitlin Yilek contributed to this story.
