Three Reasons Pete Buttigieg Is Getting Next-To-No Black Support (And He Doesn't Deserve It)

1. The black teenager who was beaten and tasered by police who mistakenly identified him as a suspect, sued and was award $18.
2. The black teenager who was found hung after getting into a argument with another teen; it was declared a suicide and his body was cremated without an autopsy.
3. Buttigieg's contradiction regarding body cameras, after the first two incidents and the recent shooting. 

Some of the article from #1: The family of a black teenager who was punched and handcuffed by three South Bend police officers then subdued with a stun gun in a case of mistaken identity is questioning why jurors awarded them just $18 in a lawsuit accusing the officers of violating his constitutional rights.

"We're black, so we automatically lose," the young man's father, Dan Franklin, told the South Bend Tribune. "The boy should've got something — they punched him, shot him in the side with a Taser gun — but we had nobody on our side."

In its Aug. 1 verdict, the federal jury in Fort Wayne ordered the three officers to each pay DeShawn Franklin and his parents $1 each for violating their constitutional protection against unlawful entry and another $1 each for violating their constitutional protection against unlawful seizure, for a total of $18.

The jury rejected claims of false arrest or false imprisonment and battery.

In July 2012, officers responded to an early morning domestic violence call. A 31-year-old woman told police her boyfriend, who was Franklin's older brother, assaulted her. She gave officers a description of a slim black male with dreadlocks. She told them he was headed to his parents' house.

Franklin's mother answered the door and officers, guns drawn, forced their way inside. They found DeShawn Franklin, then 17, in bed and thought he was their suspect. Officers tried to handcuff the still-sleeping teenager who, startled, jumped out of bed and lunged at them. He was punched three times in the face and the officers used a stun gun. They realized after putting him in a police car that they had the wrong man. His brother was never arrested.

The officers apologized to DeShawn Franklin and acknowledged their actions were appropriate, according to a police report.

Some of the article from #2:  While Pete Buttigieg tried to win over black voters in South Carolina last week, Stephanie Jones, a black woman in South Bend, sat at her dining room table in front of her son’s remains and tearfully wondered why nobody, including the mayor, ever agreed to investigate the death of her 16-year-old son.

She believes he was murdered. And she’s not alone.

Stephanie Jones’ son was found hanging from an electrical tower on April 14, 2011. A coroner decided on the scene that it was suicide and that death was almost instantaneous. That coroner, however, had no medical training and police apparently conducted no forensic examination of the scene or of the body. The body was cremated without an autopsy.

Jones says that after Buttigieg became mayor, she asked him personally to help get justice for her son. She says he told her to call his office, but that her calls were never returned. (Asked on Monday for comment, Buttigieg’s campaign said it would need time to respond. This story will be updated in the event of a response.)

For the new mayor, officially questioning the coroner’s actions regarding the hanging death of a black teenager carried potential political risks.

When Jones asked for Buttigieg’s help, it was just five months after the mayor had appointed that same coroner, Chuck Hurley, as his new, interim police chief. And that move was already controversial because Hurley was brought in after Buttigieg ousted the city’s first black police chief, which had prompted protests by the black community.

Buttigieg had demoted the black chief, Darryl Boykins, amid an FBI investigation into secret tapes of South Bend police, some of which reportedly revealed the use of racial epithets.

#3: Here's Kyle Kulinski going over the NBC article (and Buttigieg's flip-flop).