PHOTO/ALLEN HARRIS
SOUTH BEND, INDIANA – At a funeral in a black community church, hundreds of people came to pay their respects to Eric Jack Logan, a black father of seven known by the nickname “5’9” for his height. One of his sons also came, escorted by Indiana correctional officers.
A daughter eulogizing Logan broke into tears when she started to say to him in his casket, “If I could have saved you …” Regaining her composure, she finished with, “Although I have to carry on without you, I will carry you in my heart.”
Logan, 54, died on June 16 from a gunshot to the abdomen by Officer Ryan O’Neill, who said that Logan approached him with a knife during a pre-dawn encounter on a street. At a news conference later that day, police chief Scott Ruszkowski did not say whether a knife was recovered at the scene.
O’Neill was wearing a body camera, but it was turned off when he shot Logan. O’Neill and his partner put Logan in their squad car and drove him a mile away to a hospital where he was pronounced dead, according to the Indianapolis Star newspaper.
In late June, members of Eric Logan’s family sued the South Bend police and the city. The family is seeking compensatory damages against the city and O’Neill, punitive damages against O’Neill and is demanding a jury trial, according to the Star.
On July 3, at the request of the St. Joseph County prosecutor, a judge appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the case. On the same day, O’Neill said in a statement via the police union that he and his family never expected “being thrown into the middle of a Presidential campaign,” according to the Associated Press.
Immediately after the shooting South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg—already beset by stories of other race-related controversies during his seven years in office—interrupted his presidential campaign to come home and manage the public-relations fallout.
Later, in the televised Democratic debate, a rival candidate slammed Buttigieg for not simply firing O’Neill outright.
The South Bend Tribune reported that 15 of the police department’s 241 officers are black, representing 6 percent of the force. In 2012, Buttigieg’s first year in office, there were 29 black officers, about 11 percent of all sworn officers. According to the most recent census estimates, 26 percent of South Bend residents are African American, the paper said.
In the wake of Logan’s death, protests against the mayor and the police erupted in a town hall meeting and outside police headquarters. Speakers at the funeral told of “a diversity problem in the police department” and when a family member said Buttigieg “should put people in authority who are better trained,” mourners applauded.
The Washington Post keeps a national tally of people fatally shot by police. It listed Eric Jack Logan as being the seventh such victim in Indiana so far in 2019.
