Eleven people were shot, one fatally, at a South Bend bar early Sunday, just hours before mayor and presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg got ready to address issues in his Indiana city.
Brandon D. Williams, 27, was pronounced dead at a hospital after the melee at Kelly’s Pub, the St. Joseph County Metro Homicide Unit said in a news release.
The suspect remains at large, said Jessica McBrier, spokeswoman for the St. Joseph County prosecutor’s office.
Five people are in a hospital in stable condition, St. Joseph County police said in the release. The other victims were treated and released.
The incident happened the same day Buttigieg was scheduled to speak at a town hall with South Bend’s police chief.
The event, moderated by NAACP South Bend Chapter President Michael Patton, was expected to outline the process for officer-involved shooting investigations.
Buttigieg has touted his leadership of South Bend on the presidential campaign trail. But he’s come under criticism in recent weeks after an officer shot and killed a man who was allegedly breaking into cars with a knife in hand.
In response, Buttigieg canceled an appearance at a Democratic National Committee event Monday, as well as a series of fundraisers in California on Tuesday and Wednesday.
He has sincedirected his police chief to order all South Bend police officers to turn their body cameras on when interacting with civilians while on duty.
At a town hall meeting Sunday in South Bend that turned emotional and heated, Buttigieg said the city had done “a lot of things” to improve its police department, including bias and civil rights training, but acknowledged that it had failed in its efforts to diversify the department and to implement body cameras.
Buttigieg drew applause when he said he had informed the prosecutor he would like an independent investigator to look at last Sunday’s shooting. He said he would ask the US Department of Justice’s civil rights division to look into it as well.
He called for more citizens to take part in trying to reshape the city’s policies.
“I promise you that every piece of input will be taken seriously,” he said. “So you can decided whether or not you believe in me, but I believe in this city. I believe in you.”
The-CNN-Wire
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