“Mayor Pete” had $25 million 2Q presidential haul, but in South Bend increasing calls to become “Former Mayor Pete”

“Mayor Pete” had $25 million 2Q presidential haul, but in South Bend increasing calls to become “Former Mayor Pete”

The big news this morning? “Mayor Pete” Buttigieg raised almost $25 million for his presidential campaign in the Second Quarter of 2019:

Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg hauled in a whopping $24.8 million in fundraising from nearly 300,000 donors the past three months, his campaign announced on Monday.

That’s a massive figure for a White House hopeful who was largely unknown just four months ago. And it’s more confirmation – along with polls – that South Bend, Indiana mayor has gone from a long-shot to top-tier contender for the Democratic presidential nomination.

It was a total blowout – it will be interesting to see if how the other candidates compare.

But at home, all is not well for Mayor Pete, who, if some very vocal critics are successful, will soon be known as “Former Mayor Pete.”

Tensions boiled over last week in South Bend in a scandal involving Sgt. Ryan O’Neill, the cop who shot and killed Eric Logan on June 16. Police reports state that “Logan was breaking into cars and approached O’Neill with a knife.”

The South Bend Police Union released a scathing letter accusing Buttigieg of using the tragedy ““solely for his political gain and not for the health of the city he serves.” Buttigieg focused on the Logan family which ‘ostracized others, including the families involved in shootings over the weekend or the family of O’Neill, “all of whom are suffering greatly.'”

Now more people have demanded Buttigieg resign.

All of these actions come after reports came out that “St. Joseph County Prosecutor Kenneth Cotter filed a petition asking a judge to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate” the shooting. Buttigieg also promised, “he would write the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and notify Cotter that he’d like an independent investigator appointed.”

The Washington Free Beacon reported this morning that South Bend officials and local civil activists want Buttigieg gone.

Activist and pastor Mario Sims spoke to the publication, saying that healing cannot start until Buttigieg responds. He described Buttigieg as “tone-deaf” on racial matters:

Sims has clashed with Buttigieg in the past, speaking out against the mayor’s decision to demote Boykins. That decision, coupled with Buttigieg’s lack of transparency following it, Sims said, has opened a rift between South Bend’s police and its black communities that disqualifies Buttigieg from political legitimacy.

“Right now there’s no way he can stand on the stage and honestly talk about the issues pressing this country when he can’t even successfully address the dire issues of race, lack of diversity, and poverty, not to mention the homeless issue in this city,” Sims said. “If you can’t even address those issues in a city of 100,000, my God, how can you address those issues in 50 states?”

Former president of South Bend’s Board of Public Safety Pat Cottrell joined the chorus as well:

Former president of South Bend’s Board of Public Safety Pat Cottrell also told the Free Beacon that Buttigieg should resign and that the mayor should “definitely not” be running for president after this latest incident.

Cottrell said that in addition to Buttigieg’s checkered record on racial issues, the mayor has been a poor administrator when faced with internal disagreements in city government.

“Pete is a fraud,” he said.

Like Sims, Cottrell had problems with Buttigieg in the past. He resigned from his post in 2013 “after Buttigieg ignored his recommendation to fire then-Police Chief Ron Teachman for an incident where Teachman was alleged to have refrained from helping a black police officer break up a fight.” Cottrell thought “that Buttigieg did not discipline Teachman at the time to protect his own political reputation,” which led him to lose all respect for the mayor.

Local activists have started to work with the local officials to do something about Buttigieg:

South Bend resident Tiana Wardell told the Free Beacon that she is working with Common Council member Regina Williams-Preston to hold Buttigieg accountable for the police department by proposing a new racial sensitivity program.

Wardell said she believes the friction between SBPD and the city’s black community existed long before Buttigieg took office, but under his leadership, his lack of oversight allowed old wounds to break open anew.

“I think because the lack of addressing racial concerns over his 9 years, and in the 20 years before him, that led to people getting the sense that things would not be done,” she said. “And I think when you’re not held accountable, people’s actions speak to the lack of accountability. Unfortunately, because of that, we lost someone in our community.”

Bernardo Malone, founder of Justice for South Bend, added to Wardell’s comments, saying that while he’s seen the police relationship with black communities deteriorate in his lifetime, he is willing to give Buttigieg the benefit of the doubt—if he acts soon.

“Now that he knows the full problem, if he doesn’t fix it, that will fall back on him,” he told the Free Beacon.

Like I said before, the South Bend Police Union countered Buttigieg’s actions last week and accused him of using the shooting for political gain. They claimed that his actions has led to “a wedge between law enforcement officers and the community they took an oath to serve.” The police also blasted him for ignoring victims and families of victims of other shootings in the city.

Buttigieg does not poll well with black voters. One poll from June showed that almost half of black voters have not heard of him. Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-OH) told The Daily Beast that “Pete has a black problem” and does not “know of one black person out of Indiana who supports him.”

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