Buttigieg says false report briefly separated him from his twins

Pete Buttigieg spent about 24 hours separated from his 4-year-old twins after Michigan State Police and Child Protective Services came to his Traverse City, Michigan, home on an anonymous report that falsely accused him of posing a danger to his children. Authorities ordered forensic interviews for the twins and told Buttigieg not to be alone with them until those interviews were complete, forcing him and Chasten Buttigieg to send the children to their grandparents’ house overnight.

Buttigieg said the caller claimed he had confessed years earlier to violent crimes during a chance meeting in Alabama, a state he said he had never been to. He said a police officer later told him the allegation appeared politically motivated and would not be referred to a prosecutor. Michigan State Police received an anonymous report and officers and Child Protective Services determined it was false. The caller’s identity remained unresolved.

The ordeal began soon after he posted Father’s Day photos of his family online. Buttigieg called the experience “among the darkest hours of my life” and said the twins were interviewed by trained personnel the next day, with nothing in the forensic interview prompting concern. Pete Buttigieg and Chasten Buttigieg adopted the children in 2021, and he said the twins are only four years old and do not know or care what a Democrat or Republican is. Buttigieg said the case felt like swatting, except that Child Protective Services, not a SWAT team, was sent to the door.