Mayor Pete Buttigieg responded to the fatal shooting in South Bend of a black man by a white police officer — the biggest crisis of his candidacy to date — at Thursday's Democratic debate.
What he's saying: When asked why South Bend's police force has not caught up to the racial demographic of its city — its police force is 6% black in a city that is 26% black — Buttigieg responded, "because I couldn't get it done."
"My community is in anguish right now, because of an officer-involved shooting, a black man — Eric Logan — killed by a white officer. I'm not allowed to take sides until the investigation comes back, the officer said he was attacked with a knife but he didn't have his body camera on. It's a mess, and we're hurting.
"When I look into his mother's eyes, I have to face the fact that nothing that I say will bring him back. ... Until we move policing out from the shadow of systemic racism, whatever this particular incident teaches us, we will be left with the bigger problem of the fact that there is a wall of mistrust put up one racist act a time."
