Pete Buttigieg briefly separated from children after false police report

Pete Buttigieg, the former US transportation secretary, has revealed he was forced to spend a night away from his children because of an anonymous allegation against him, which police say they later determined to be false.

Michigan State Police found no evidence to substantiate the claim and believed it was politically motivated, the Democrat said.

After receiving an anonymous report that he posed a danger to his children, the police arranged forensic interviews for his four-year-old twins and notified him that he could be alone with the children until interviews were conducted, he said.

Michigan State Police told the BBC the anonymous allegation against Buttigieg was false.

Buttigieg, who mounted an unsuccessful presidential bid in 2020 and is widely touted as a 2028 White House contender, wrote in a post on Substack that it was "among the darkest hours of my life".

In the post, he said the latest incident occurred shortly after he shared photos of his family on social media for Father's Day.

"I cannot describe the mix of rage and sadness that I feel at the idea that someone brought our children into this," he added.

"They are four years old. Four. They do not know or care what a Democrat or a Republican is."

Buttigieg said he worried about the "unseen effects" of the ordeal on him, his husband, Chasten, and their children.

He described the false allegation as the Child Protective Services (CPS) equivalent of Swatting, in which hoax callers dispatch armed police to homes.

Buttigieg said he was told an anonymous caller had contacted CPS.

"The caller said that he had spoken to a woman who claimed to have met me at a conference several years ago in Alabama, where she said I told her that I had committed unspeakable violent crimes, and the caller believed my children were still at risk," he said.

He said the officer who responded to his home "made clear that he believed this was politically motivated" and that it would not be referred to a prosecutor.

"Their time and resources were wasted in a cruel, politically motivated hoax that harmed our family," Buttigieg wrote.

Michigan State Police told the BBC: "This week, the Michigan State Police received an anonymous report.

"The Michigan State Police and Child Protective Services responded and determined the report was false."

Their statement described such false reports as "dangerous" and that they divert "workers from responding to legitimate emergencies and protecting vulnerable children and families".

Buttigieg has been the target of LGTBQ attacks in the past, and noted that it was not lost on him that the latest incident took place during Pride Month.

"We're used to nasty, hateful, and sometimes violent things being said about us and even about our family," he wrote. "But this is the first time someone managed to invade our lives like this - and drag our children into it."

Buttigieg and his husband became first-time parents in 2021 when they adopted fraternal twins Joseph August and Penelope Rose.

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