SOUTH BEND — One day after an anger-filled town hall with Mayor Pete Buttigieg — held following the shooting of a black man here by a police officer — an edgy crowd packed City Hall to demand answers and accountability.

In that moment, soothing words helped calm the situation.

"I'm so happy to see so many people here today who are willing to stand up and use their voice and fight for what we need in this community," the voice said. "But it is not a black issue; it is not a black versus white issue. It's not even a blue versus black issue. This is our problem, and if we share in the problem, we have a much better chance of sharing in the solution. But it's going to take time. It's gonna take effort, and it's a Herculean task, to be honest.

"But I would love to see South Bend be that city that everybody in the country can point to and say this is how people live in a community and this is what community is all about. ...We can be that city, but we've got to come together and we have to start listening to each other."

Buttigieg, the young presidential hopeful, did not speak those words. He wasn't there. He had flown to Miami, back to the campaign trail, earlier in the day to prep for Thursday night's Democratic debate. Nor was the sentiment delivered by a City Council member. Or a police official.

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It was, of all people, Notre Dame basketball coach Ann "Muffet" McGraw. The city was honoring the women's runner-up NCAA finish, and the coach used her time at the microphone to express her solidarity with the crowd, most of whom were not there to hear her speak, or to honor her team.

Nonetheless, she received a loud, throaty and lengthy standing ovation. Her players, towering before the crowd of more than 150, beamed.

Buttigieg wasn't entirely absent. Immediately after McGraw spoke, his staff aired a pre-recorded video of him congratulating the team. He made no mention of the shooting, no acknowledgment of the angst the crowd was feeling.

Some people clapped. Politely. Like the sound of a quiet golf clap trickling through the room.

Buttigieg's ambitions, or sense of duty, has left the city without a day-to-day mayor for large swaths of his two terms. In 2014, he volunteered to serve seven months as an intelligence officer in Afghanistan. In 2017, he campaigned nationally for Democratic National Committee chair. Now, he's running for president.

While he and his supporters assure he can make day-to-day decisions over the phone while he's on the road, it's clear his absence is felt. Buttigieg's relationship with African Americans in South Bend, and his difficulty in reaching minority voters on the presidential campaign trail, has exploded into view since the June 16 police shooting.

More than a dozen African-American city officials, community leaders, pastors and voters who spoke to IndyStar echoed a troubling sentiment: Buttigieg hasn't spent enough time talking directly to people of color or trying to solve systemic socioeconomic problems within those neighborhoods since taking office.

And now, at a time when they are hurting as much as ever, they told IndyStar that Buttigieg needs to be present in the city, explaining how he's going to fix a long-fractured relationship many African Americans describe with the police department. Not by speaking at large nationally streamed town halls, or sitting in his office on the 14th floor of the County-City building, they say, but by going door to door, or directly engaging folks in smaller meetings within the city's many predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods.

Sheldon Jackson, who talked to IndyStar while he was washing his pride and joy, a mauve Chrysler 300 with chrome hubcaps and grill, said he's never seen Buttigieg in his west-side neighborhood. After watching Buttigieg's handling of the police shooting so far, Jackson said he wouldn't vote for the mayor even if he was the Democratic presidential nominee. Jackson said it doesn't feel like Buttigieg understands what he's hearing from people of color and he needs to come back to South Bend to listen.

"He should have canceled that and said, 'Look, I've got to take care of home before I do all this other stuff because it just doesn't look good.' It doesn't look good," Jackson said. "He should be here, and his chief of police should be here, and they should go to every neighborhood in South Bend, Indiana, and spend time there. Just don't go show up for 5 or 10 minutes. Get out, walk around the neighborhood. If you have to go door to door, just go talk to the people and understand where they are coming from."

Buttigieg declined to meet with, or speak to, IndyStar. During the debate, he described South Bend as being in anguish and said he's determined to bring about a day, not just in South Bend but everywhere, when black and white people alike feel safe when they see the police.

Former staff members and political allies who spoke to IndyStar defended his record, pointing to the unique challenges they say he faces as mayor in a crowded Democratic primary field.

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City Council President Tim Scott, a political ally of the mayor's, said Buttigieg has handled the shooting well, with the possible exception of the decision to hold the town hall. Scott said emotions were too raw for a large centralized televised gathering, a point echoed by multiple people who spoke to IndyStar.

"In knowing Pete, you might not see that emotion (from him) but he truly ... he's taking to heart what is being said and wants to definitely make a difference," Scott said.

'How are you, the mayor, going to run for president and you can’t even handle little South Bend'

Late Monday, amid increasing pressure from some public officials and African Americans, the county prosecutor requested an outside investigation in the shooting death of 54-year old Eric Logan.

Buttigieg, who had publicly said he was open to such an investigation, released a statement that he supported the decision.

Logan's family members don't think the police's version of his death adds up, and it's become clear many others in the community also have questions.

Anger has been building, especially among African Americans, since the shooting. Buttigieg heard it at a march on Friday, which he skipped South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn’s “World Famous Fish Fry" to attend.

And he heard it at Sunday's town hall televised on CNN, the palpable anger of which drew headlines from coast to coast.

In the past week, police officers have twice been shot at, but not hit, according to city officials. Ten people were injured, and one man was killed at a local bar shooting June 23, where brightly colored police paint marks the spots where dozens and dozens of bullets and shells landed in the parking lot.

A memorial for Logan has twice been defaced, including with the words "good shoot," causing friends of the family to set up a 24-7 watch. It includes a stuffed bear, flowers and candles.

The official version of what happened is concise. South Bend Police say Sgt. Ryan O'Neill found Logan rooting through a car after 3 a.m. in an apartment complex after hearing reports of someone vandalizing vehicles in the area. O'Neill says he shot Logan because he was wielding a knife, advancing toward the officer and refusing orders to drop the weapon.

Logan later died at an area hospital after being transported in a squad car instead of an ambulance, a decision repeatedly questioned by Logan's family and others. They wonder whether that contributed to his death.

"The ambulance department is two blocks away from the scene, so it's not like the ambulance had to come from 5 miles away," said Vernado Malone Sr., a friend of Logan's who works as a paramedic.

At this point, the officer's account is the only one to emerge. Police say the officer had not activated his body camera. Buttigieg now will require police to do so in similar situations. No witnesses have come forward.

Compounding the situation, it's emerged that O'Neill was investigated in July 2008 on claims he made racist remarks, according to court documents obtained by IndyStar. But a police review did not prove him guilty and no discipline was taken.

Logan’s brother, Tyree Bonds, told IndyStar that Logan has no history of theft and wouldn't attack an armed officer with a knife. Logan does have a rap sheet that includes charges of carrying a handgun without a license and possession of drugs.

Bonds questioned whether his brother was rooting through cars at all, and thinks he was walking by the apartment complex to visit his mother when police arrived. The racial remarks O'Neill allegedly made also concern Bonds.

He thinks Buttigieg is saying the right things. But Bonds wants action to be taken.

“He’s the mayor. He knows what’s going on. Just do your job. That’s all we ask of you,” Bonds told IndyStar while he visited his brother's memorial early Monday. “How are you, the mayor, going to run for president and you can’t even handle little South Bend.”

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Sounding worn out later that evening at Monday's council meeting, Bonds told the City Council the family wants justice and asked the crowd to remain calm as the investigation, which he had just earlier learned about, plays out.

"We know for a fact this is going to take a process," Bonds said. "If we as a family are willing to accept that, you all got to accept it, too. I watched all of the yelling and hooping and hollering yesterday (at the town hall meeting) and that was just ridiculous. Everybody knows this stuff has been going on for a long time, now let this happen. They said they are going to get a special prosecutor, let that happen."

On Wednesday the family filed a federal lawsuit against the city and the officer alleging excessive use of force.

Some residents made the point of telling IndyStar they know many police officers are good at their jobs. But they're concerned about the bad ones.

George Jones, a retired principal, said Buttigieg doesn't seem to know what to do in this situation.

"When you have a few officers, it tarnishes the whole police department," Jones said. "Because of the fact they seem like they are protected and things are covered up. That is what this community is feeling. You have these bad officers on your staff, and you don't dismiss them, and you keep giving excuses for their behavior, and these things keep matriculating, and so that creates a friction between the police department and the community."

Komaneach Wheeler said she knows police risk their lives to help the community, and she said they helped her once with a domestic violence case. But she also knows there's been racism in the department.

"He's going through some challenges," she said of Buttigieg. "We all see it nationally, whether there are tears, whether there is pain and suffering. But he is going through it. Why? Because he had a dream. And he had a dream to be a president. And he was mayor at the time. And he forgot to do some things right? So this is some consequences as well for him to prove himself."

Tiana Batiste-Waddell, an educator who has been pushing for the police department to adopt a bias-training program called Intercultural Development Inventory, said people need to know action is being taken.

“There are subcultures within our city that don’t feel safe,” she said. “We don’t feel safe. We don’t trust the process; we don’t trust the people. We don't feel safe.”

Police criticize Buttigieg

Buttigieg has found himself on a lonely island. He's been criticized by African Americans and now he's facing it from his own police department, with some officers apparently feeling like his response has left them hung out to dry.

The South Bend Fraternal Order of Police released a letter Monday that sharply criticized his handling of the situation and made it clear they feel like he should be better supporting the department and its officers.

The letter also points out Buttigieg has been silent about the shooting outside Kelly's Pub and other police encounters over the past couple weeks.

"Mayor Buttigieg has in no way unified the community," the open letter read. "Mayor Buttigieg continues to only focus on one incident and one family. Buttigieg has yet to comment on the largest mass shooting in the recent history of South Bend or on one juvenile killing another earlier in the week."

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Jason Banicki-Critchlow, a former county corrections officer, said he knows many South Bend officers who are good people and it's too early to come to judgement. But Banicki-Critchlow, who is white, said he grew up in a diverse neighborhood and so understands others have had different interactions with police than he has.

"We have a few bits and pieces of a story," he said, "but we don't have all of the evidence."

Banicki-Critchlow thinks Buttigieg is using officers as a political pawn to deflect mistakes he's made in handling the police department. He said Buttigieg is in a difficult position.

"It's tough to run for president at the level needed for that race and also to run a city in crises at the same time," Banicki-Critchlow said.

Firing African American police chief creates distrust

Buttigieg tried to quell concerns about the time he is spending on the campaign trail during an interview on WUBS-FM, an African American-owned community Christian radio station in South Bend.

"There's only one mayor," he said, in a quote provided to IndyStar by his staff. "I'm the mayor when I'm sitting here with you, I'm the mayor when I'm sitting in the office on the 14th floor, I'm the mayor when I'm walking down a block on the west side, and I'm the mayor if I'm traveling. So if anybody is wondering where accountability falls or where leadership will come from, so long as I hold this job it's me."

Station host and owner Sylvester Williams later told IndyStar there's little evidence Buttigieg is reaching out to more than a handful of people. He thinks the mayor should not have returned to the campaign trail so soon.

"I think that he is struggling to find solutions, because it appeared that he has not really felt the pain of the people," Williams said. "He has somewhat been more analytical, political and somewhat separated from this area of pain with the people."

Williams said the trouble began in 2012 when Buttigieg demoted the city's first African American police chief, Darryl Boykins, who still is popular in the community. Public officials, community leaders and voters told IndyStar that Boykins spent time with people of color, listened and understood their concerns. They felt he was a bridge across a long troubled relationship between police and African Americans.

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Buttigieg demoted Boykins over his handling of a police phone-tapping incident that drew the attention of federal authorities. The tapes allegedly revealed racist remarks made by some police officers, but Buttigieg contends they were illegally made. Boykins, who has denied wrongdoing, eventually sued and settled with the city out of court, with neither side admitting fault. The police officers who were taped also sued and settled and no longer work for the department.

The Rev. Graylin Watson of Jesus is Emmanuel Church said the mayor needs to reform the police department. He referenced several incidents in which he believes South Bend officers acted improperly, perhaps most notably a 2012 incident in which three police officers went to the wrong home searching for a suspect and punched, stunned and handcuffed a black man they found sleeping there.

The man was later awarded just $18 by a jury in a civil suit, raising more questions among African Americans about the seriousness of which this country takes civil rights violations.

"Now we see a mayor that's not qualified to speak to a hostile situation when you got people hurting and disturbed," Watson said. "But this didn't start when the mayor came in but he's covering and he's not rendered the services to the African American community, or to the Latino community or to the white community that need to be rendered."

Williams plans to hold a rally with local pastors to discuss the police shooting and race relations at City Hall on July 1.

"Lets see if Buttigieg, who is invisible on these things, will be here to hear what the pastors have to pray and have to say," Williams said.

Pete Buttigieg allies defend his record

Political allies told IndyStar the mayor can run the city while campaigning for president and defended his response to the police shooting.

Buttigieg's former chief of staff James Mueller was the mayor's point of contact within the city when he ran for DNC chair two years ago. Mueller, who is the Democratic nominee to replace the mayor, said Buttigieg made decisions via phone and email when he was on the campaign trial. Mueller doesn't believe any projects were slowed down, including one of the largest priorities while he was away, renaming a highly traveled section of downtown after Martin Luther King Jr.

"We really got efficient at maximizing the time he was in town to hitting events that he needed to hit and to be visible to show the community he was still here working on stuff," Mueller said. "In terms of decision making, he and I were friends and had been working together at the city for over a year, a year and a half at that point, and so really understood what he needed to know to make a decision and how to get that to him efficiently."

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Former Deputy Mayor Mark Neal, who is now a principal at a real-estate firm in South Bend, described a similar experience when he served as point man during Buttigieg's time in Afghanistan. Back then, the city was finishing an initiative to tear down 1,000 vacant houses in 1,000 days, and Neal says everything continued smoothly.

"Part of that is his personal ability to recruit people to the city was extraordinary," Neal said. "I think that was a big part of the success of the city; we had so many good people dedicated to public service."

Both Mueller and Neal think Buttigieg is handling the police shooting appropriately, saying there was no action to be taken last week while he was campaigning.

Mueller likely will be the mayor in 2019 in this predominantly Democratic city, meaning he will oversee the police department. Like Buttigieg before him, he thinks adding diversity to the department would go a long way. In the past eight years, though, the department has grown less diverse as older officers have retired.

Mueller thinks Buttigieg's campaign will be able to overcome this moment in time.

"These are challenging issues that almost every city in America faces and no one has solved it completely," Mueller said. "Taking on this kind of challenge in a national spotlight is certainly a test for him to go through, but certainly not one that can’t be passed."

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Neal says Buttigieg cares deeply about the community, even if emotion doesn't always come through when he's speaking and listening. Buttigieg was criticized by some for not showing enough empathy at the town hall, though he teared up when talking to reporters afterward.

"I think he is more than willing to engage with folks, and I think sometimes someone of his intellect doesn't always allow people to see the humanness of him," Neal said. "He is a very compassionate person."

Buttigieg describes South Bend's 'anguish' during Democratic debate appearance

While in Miami the week of the Democratic debate, Buttigieg defended his decision to leave South Bend on national media appearances, saying he had left the campaign trail earlier to reach out to the community. During the debate, he was asked why the police department wasn't more diverse.

“Because I couldn’t get it done,” Buttigieg said. "My community is in anguish right now because of an officer involved shooting. A black man, Eric Logan, was killed by a white officer. I'm not allowed to take sides until the investigation comes back. The officer said he was attacked by a knife but he didn't have his body camera on. It's a mess, and we're hurting.

"And I could walk you through all of the things that we have done as a community, all of the steps that we took, from bias training to de-escalation, but it didn't save the life of Eric Logan. And when I look into his mother's eyes, I have to face the fact that nothing that I say will bring him back."

Before returning to the trail, he had cancelled events in New York, South Carolina and California to spend time in South Bend. While back in town, he held news conferences, went to several outreach meetings, made phone calls, spoke to community and religious leaders, activists and elected officials. He also met with Logan's family.

Supporters say he plans to add more diversity to the police department and point out he had some time ago implemented bias training.

Should his campaign continue?

Not everyone is so sure things have gone so well over the years when Buttigieg is out of town.

City Councilman Oliver Davis pushes back on the idea that things have gone so smoothly when Buttigieg is out of town. Davis recalls at least one building project downtown that was delayed while Buttigieg was running for DNC chair.

He thinks Buttigieg held Sunday's town hall quickly in order to get back onto the campaign trail, rather than waiting to let things cool off, or speak to people in smaller groups.

"It's a situation where everything is trying to get solved so quickly because he has to go," Davis said. "That's a challenge."

Davis said Buttigieg has failed to reform the police department. He shared with IndyStar an open letter he wrote to Buttigieg in 2016 that called for police to be required to use body cameras, for a citizen board to review police misconduct and for more diversity within the police department. He said none of those things have happened, until Buttigieg required body cameras to be used after this latest shooting.

When asked whether Buttigieg's campaign could recover from the police shooting, Davis questioned whether it should recover.

"His campaign team lacks diversity," Davis said. "Why would you want to run for president and have a non diverse team. And other leaders across the country had to call out to him and share where is the diversity of your team? That shows you that he is not ready on Day 1 when it comes to that racial and age diversity.

"Most of the people on his team are under the age of 40. You have to have a combination of people who are strong to have a strong team."

Call IndyStar reporter Chris Sikich at 317-444-6036. Follow him on Twitter: @ChrisSikich.