a little more complex than the usual soundbites
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/23/us/politics/buttigieg-south-bend-shooting.html?
Speaking to reporters after the event, Mr. Buttigieg, with emotion evident in his voice, said he was grieved by his constituents’ pain and committed to addressing their complaints. He said he attended Sunday’s event not out of political calculation, but out of a sense of duty. “I don’t know if it’s smart or not, I don’t know if it’s strategic or not, but it’s my city,” Mr. Buttigieg said. “I have a relationship with everybody in this city.”
Oliver Davis, a black member of the South Bend City Council who has been a sharp critic of Mr. Buttigieg on policing matters, paused a long time during a telephone interview on Sunday when asked if the mayor showed empathy. “If he cries and sheds tears then people say he’s weak,” he said. “If he doesn’t shed a tear people say he’s cold. If he gets angry people say he’s out of control. If he has a flat face and doesn’t say anything, people say he doesn’t feel our pain.” Mr. Davis said he admired the mayor for wading into a crowd of protesters and Mr. Logan’s grieving relatives on Friday night. “Very few people could have withstood what he went through without completely losing it,” he said.
Lwan Easton, an African-American resident of South Bend who attended the meeting on Sunday, said he was generally pleased with Mr. Buttigieg’s performance as mayor. But while parts of the city have indeed improved, Mr. Easton said the mayor had struggled connecting with black people and “needs to step up his game with community interaction.”“This is a defining moment for him,” Mr. Easton said. “I believe that he can probably figure this out.”
Toward the end of the meeting, Verma Blackman, an African-American resident, spoke about her questions about Mr. Logan’s death, about how he was transported to the hospital in a police car rather than an ambulance, about her frustration that the body camera her tax money helped buy was not turned on. And she told the mayor that her young grandson was scared of his city’s police officers. “I’m doing everything I know how to fix it,” Mr. Buttigieg told her.
As she left the high school, Ms. Blackman said she was pleased with the mayor’s response.
“I’m a big fan of Mayor Pete: he answered it and didn’t tiptoe around it,” Ms. Blackman said. “That’s what I wanted: I wanted him to respond to our cries. Because we’re crying.”
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