Mayor Pete Buttigieg is allegedly in big trouble with African American voters (not just in South Bend but all over) because he didn’t personally step into the 6.16 confrontation between South Bend Police Sgt. Ryan O’Neill and the late Eric J. Logan. Or because he’s had the temerity to run for President and therefore wasn’t home in South Bend where he should have been at the time of the shooting.

The O’Neill-Logan shooting happened around 3 am, which suggests that if Buttigieg had been in South Bend he probably would have been home sleeping. Nonetheless, the African-American community mantra is “dilletante Mayor Pete has to face the music!”

O’Neill’s account of the shooting of Logan is admittedly curious. Logan, who apparently had been breaking into cars, either came at O’Neill with a knife or “threw” it at him. What kind of a drooling idiot threatens a cop with a knife when the cop is holding a loaded gun and saying “drop it!”? It’s obviously problematic that O’Neill didn’t turn on his bodycam, and so the African American community is assuming O’Neill is flat-out lying, and that he may have plugged Logan without reasonable cause.

But I’ve also read that (a) today’s high-end bodycams can be automatically activated when a police offer removes his/her weapon from his/her holster, and that (b) South Bend chose instead to purchase manually-operated bodycams, which are cheaper.

I know I’m just a typically smug and clueless white guy sitting in West Hollywood, but how likely is it that a 19-year veteran of a big-city police force who rose in the ranks…hired in 2000, promoted to sergeant in 2015…how likely is it that O’Neill would just shoot Logan in cold blood? It’s possible, sure, but how likely?

A 6.18 account of the incident by South Bend Tribune reporters Greg Swiercz and Christian Sheckler states the following:

(a) “Investigators…found six vehicles [that] had been broken into — two on William [Street], two on Taylor Street and two in the Central High parking lot. A purse, a wallet and a knife — the same knife that was found at the scene of the shooting — were stolen from the various vehicles, according to South Bend prosecutor Ken Cotter .”

(b) Cotter and Metro Homicide commander Michael Grzegorek said that “shortly after O’Neill drove into the Central High Apartments parking lot, he saw a person’s legs sticking out of a Honda Civic. O’Neill stopped his cruiser, stepped out and asked the man if the car was his. The man said ‘yes’ but O’Neill spotted a purse wedged in his clothing. The man then emerged from the car with knife in his right hand.”

(c) “Logan is said to have ignored multiple orders to ‘drop the knife’ and then approached O’Neill with the knife raised. O’Neill, backing up toward his vehicle, fired two shots. One shot struck Logan in the right side of his abdomen, while the other struck the opened door of the car. Logan ‘was coming toward (O’Neill) at roughly the same speed that Sgt. O’Neill was retreating,’ Cotter said.”

(d) “Logan’s criminal record, according to Indiana Department of Correction and court files, includes a prison sentence between 2009 and 2017 for charges of dealing cocaine. He also had three previous convictions for possession of cocaine, and one for carrying a handgun without a license.” HE comment: In other words, Logan was a law-abiding Zen cat — a man of serenity and substance.

(e) Logan’s brother, Tyree Bonds, has “admitted that Logan had a history with drugs but said it should not affect how the shooting case is handled. Bonds also pointed out his brother had no history of thefts or break-ins. ‘He’s never been a thief. You can check his record,’ Bonds said. ‘You’re going to find out he never stole anything a day in his life.'” Curious: Why does Bonds have a different last name than his late brother?

Nonetheless Logan, thrice busted for cocaine possession and a guy who had served an eight-year stretch for cocaine dealing, was in a parking lot inside an apparently broken-into car at 3 am or thereabouts. What does that tell you? What does that indicate? Nonetheless the general African-American South Bend community reaction has been (a) “smells wrong!”, (b) “possibly crooked police department!” and (c) “Mayor Pete isn’t getting my vote because he was running for President instead of minding the store!”