Mayor Pete Buttigieg is an elected official with actual duties, and a crisis in South Bend, Indiana, where he actually is supposed to be working, called him home.

Last Sunday, there was a police shooting. The officer was white, the man who was shot and killed was black. There is no body camera footage to review.

South Bend Police Sgt. Ryan O’Neill confronted Eric J. Logan in the north parking lot of the Central High Apartment complex downtown after a 9-1-1 call about car break-ins in the neighborhood, Prosecutor Ken Cotter said at a news conference Monday to outline the investigation by the County Metro Homicide Unit.”

O’Neill’s body camera was not on because he had not activated his emergency lights, according to Cotter and Michael Grzegorek, commander of Metro Homicide.”

They explained that the lights, dashboard camera and body camera are all connected; because O’Neill had not activated his lights, neither his dashcam video nor his body camera went on.”

O’Neill did not have his lights on because he was circling the parking lot and searching the area just as he came upon Logan inside a car, according to Cotter. The officer also did not turn on his body camera through an activation button on his wrist because O’Neill initially was checking the identity of the person in the car to determine if he was the owner, Cotter said.”

Investigators have no video of the incident, saying surrounding buildings did not have working cameras, and no witnesses beyond O’Neill.”

“If there’s camera (footage), I’d love to be able to see that,” Cotter said. “If there are witnesses, I’d love to be able to hear from them.”

Logan, who was either 53 or 54 (public records list different birth dates), died at Memorial Hospital early Sunday morning shortly after being shot once in the abdomen. He lived near downtown in an apartment with his mother.”

The reason this shooting is making national headlines is because of Mayor Pete. He’s busy running for president, you know, and something like this could either make or break him in demonstrating leadership. And South Bend knows it, too.

So when the mayor showed up to a rally, the residents let him have it.

One by one, people at the “Justice for South Bend” rally Friday night confronted Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Police Chief Scott Ruszkowski, calling for everything from firing police officers to requiring more training programs for the city’s police force.”

As the 150 or so demonstrators circled in, the event billed as a march actually spent its first 40 minutes in a tense discussion in front of police headquarters on West Sample Street, featuring shouts, expletives and raw emotions.”

The rally was another gathering this week in the wake of Sunday’s shooting of Eric Logan, 54, by Sgt. Ryan O’Neill in the parking lot of the Central High Apartments. While responding to a call for someone breaking into vehicles, O’Neill confronted Logan, who reportedly had a knife. O’Neill shot Logan when he went toward the police officer, officials have said.”

“I’m mad because my brother died,” Tyree Bonds, brother of Eric, said in the middle of the loud, intense dialogue. “People are getting tired of you letting your officers do whatever they want to do.”

Shirley Newbill, Eric’s mother, asked Buttigieg and the city to act on her son’s death.”

“I have been here all my life, and you have not done a damn thing about me or my son or none of these people out here,” she said. “It’s time for you to do something.”

At one point, a woman at the rally told Buttigieg, “You’re running for president and you want black people to vote for you? That’s not going to happen.”

Mayor Pete Buttigieg: “I do not have evidence that there has been discipline for racist behavior…”

Protester: “You running for president and you expect black people to vote for you?”

Buttigieg: “I’m not asking for your vote.”

Protester: “You ain’t gonna get it either.” pic.twitter.com/tK1Ys0Yvfc

— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) June 22, 2019

Ouch.

A “he said, he’s dead” shooting is a pretty terrible situation, especially when the body camera was there and didn’t kick on (which seems excessively dumb). And yes, people should get a full and fair accounting of what happened. But it is obvious that the population of South Bend is not in love with Mayor Pete or his leadership skills. That’s a problem for a man who thinks he has what it takes to be president of the United States.

Featured image: Mayor Pete Buttigieg via DonkeyHotey on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)