Ocean City Mayor Jay A. Gillian has been slapped with a civil suit for nearly $600,000 for an unpaid debt.
Filed in Cape May County Superior Court by the 1st Bank of Sea Isle City and the Patricia Gillian Irrevocable Trust, the suit seeks payment for a 2024 court judgment related to Gillian’s closed Wonderland Pier amusement park.
“Nothing has been paid on account of the Judgment,” the suit states, according to court records.
Gillian, who has been mayor since 2010 and is now seeking a fourth term, filed for bankruptcy earlier this month. He could not be reached for comment about the suit.
The Gillian family had owned Wonderland from 1965 to 2021, when it had defaulted on $8 millions in loans, and sold the amusement park to developer Eustace Mita, of Icona Resorts.
Mita, who has had plans to transform the site into a $150 million luxury hotel, and eventually townhomes, is also named in the suit. He told the Press of Atlantic City that he is not liable for Gillian’s Wonderland debts from before Mita bought the property.
After a City Council vote earlier this month, the property remains under review by the Ocean City Planning Board to determine whether it should be rehabilitated or rezoned for new development.
Patricia Gillian was married to Gillian’s father, Roy Gillian, former mayor and founder of Gillian’s Wonderland Pier, who died in 2024 at 94.
The complaint argues that the bank and the trust are owed nearly $600,000 that went to Gillian after the sale of the boardwalk property.
Earlier this month, Gillian described his declaring bankruptcy as an “extraordinarily difficult decision,” due to a combination of business decisions, personal financial obligations, and outside circumstances, which led to “serious financial strain.”
“Like many individuals and families across our nation who encounter unexpected hardship, I found myself in a position where traditional methods were no longer viable,” Gillian said. “It is my hope that by being transparent and direct, others facing similar hardships will feel empowered to seek help, take responsible action, and work toward rebuilding.”
Staff writer Henry Savage contributed to this article.
Approximately 3.4 million state agency letters intended for Pennsylvania residents — including some detailing whether they are eligible for health benefits or food assistance, or need to renew them — were not delivered to residents from Nov. 3 through Dec. 3, officials said Friday.
Late last week, Pennsylvania state officials discovered that a month’s worth of mail had never been sent to residents by a government-contracted vendor, resulting in a pileup of millions of unsent state communications. Once the issue was discovered, the state fired the vendor, Harrisburg-based Capitol Presort Services, and hired another vendor for a $1 million emergency contract to work through the backlog.
Now, the state says 1.7 million letters sent by DHS, which oversees the care of Pennsylvania’s most vulnerable residents and the delivery of critical public benefits, were not delivered because of the vendor issue, said spokesperson Brandon Cwalina.
Residents may not have received letters detailing whether they need to renew their health benefits or if they are required to submit additional information to continue receiving SNAP food assistance, Cwalina confirmed. Administrative hearing notices — which could determine someone’s eligibility for public benefits, appeals about alleged elder abuse, or approvals of new foster homes — as well as child abuse clearances were also among the affected mail, he said.
Cwalina said the contents of some of the letters were also communicated to some intended recipients virtually, if they had opted to receive email or text notifications. Child abuse clearances are available online.
SNAP cutoffs, which are administered by DHS, were set to begin under the federal government’s new work requirements in December and must be appealed within 15 days. The federal government has said it will not count the month of November as part of its three-month timeline to implement SNAP cutoffs, so eligibility didn’t “occur during the period affected by the mail delay,” Cwalina added.
It remains unclear whether any Pennsylvania residents lost access to their benefits due to the vendor issue that went unnoticed for a month, or if they are at risk of missing deadlines to maintain their benefits. It’s also still unclear how many DHS hearings had to be rescheduled — and the impact of those delays on the care of Pennsylvania’s most at-risk residents.
Another 1.6 million letters from the state Department of Transportation were not delivered last month, including driver’s license and vehicle registration renewal invitations, driver’s license camera cards, vehicle registration cards, and address card updates, said Paul Vezzetti, a spokesperson for the Department of General Services.
Driver’s license suspensions were not impacted by the stalled mail. Vehicle registration and license renewal registrations are sent three months in advance, so anyone who was due to receive one at the start of November will have until February to submit it, Vezzetti said earlier this week.
All of the unsent letters from PennDot and DHS were successfully mailed by a new vendor this week and should reach residents within a few days, Vezzetti said.
The Elkins Estate, which already hosts weddings in its main mansion, is set to add a boutique event space and a distillery in the new year.
In the fall, the Tudor-style Chelten House will open for smaller gatherings of 100 or fewer people, and include 16 guest rooms, said Jeanne Cretella, cofounder of By Landmark hospitality.
“We’re really looking forward to our next phase,” Cretella said, noting that the Chelten House “will be the perfect setting for those much more intimate events, whether it’s seminars or retreats or business meetings.”
In 2019, Jeanne and Frank Cretella’s company, By Landmark, bought the sprawling Cheltenham property for $6.5 million from the Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine de Ricci, who had used the grounds for religious retreats. At the time, the couple said they intended to spend $20 million to restore six historic buildings on the site.
A couple walks through a room in the Elstowe Manor at Elkins Estate.
By Landmark’s final investment numbers were not available Friday, according to a spokesperson, as renovations are ongoing.
The Cretellas initially envisioned a luxury boutique hotel with more than 100 guest rooms, a spa, a restaurant, and other amenities. At one point, they even considered installing a heliport on the site.
Then the pandemic happened, Jeanne Cretella recalled Friday.
Despite the challenges of that time, “we are so proud that we were able to open up Elstowe Manor,” the estate’s 70,000-square-foot centerpiece that required extensive plumbing, electrical, heating, and ADA upgrades to be brought up to code, Cretella said.
A room at the Elkins Estate’s Elstowe Manor, its main mansion, set up for a wedding reception.
“We made the decision after COVID that it would be best … to have the rooms only open to event guests,” she said.
With 50-foot frescoed ceilings and a grand ballroom with a glass skylight, Elstowe Manor can host 300-person events and includes 69 guest rooms.
More than 100 weddings and events have been held at the manor in the past two years (The venue also hosted weddings in the early 2010s when it was briefly owned by a nonprofit that went bankrupt).
A couple kisses during their wedding ceremony outside the Elkins Estate’s Elstowe Manor.
At the estate these days, couples and their guests feel like they “are somewhere really special, and have the ability to really enjoy utilizing the estate for the whole weekend,” Cretella said.
With its more intimate setting, the Chelten House is meant to complement the Elstowe Manor, Cretella said. The home features Italian Renaissance Revival designs, with terracotta roof tiles, large arched windows, wood-paneled rooms, and marble fireplaces.
While each part of the property is set apart and has its own entrance, Cretella said she foresees the Chelten House being busy during the week (when most corporate retreats occur) and the Elstowe Manor bustling with wedding festivities on the weekends.
Some larger weddings may use both the manor and the Chelten House for their events and accommodations, she said.
Cretella said they don’t foresee adding more amenities to the property in the near future.
“The original plan to have a restaurant was definitely in conjunction with having a hotel that was open to the public,” not just event guests, she said. So “opening up a restaurant is not on the horizon.”
But, she added, “we won’t say never.”
For now, Cretella said they are focused on their events, including opportunities to welcome the public onto the historic site.
Earlier this year, the estate opened a podcast recording studio and demonstration kitchen, which Cretella said they hope local school students can use. They are also looking to bring professional actors and creators into the space.
In November, By Landmark opened the estate up for paid public tours. A tour in early January, which costs $30 a person, is already sold out.
Cretella said the estate plans to host a Valentine’s Day dinner, open to the public, with an optional overnight stay after the meal.
For the Chelten House, booking for small private events will open in the new year, Cretella said.
Based in North Jersey, By Landmark operates nearly 30 venues in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. They include the Hotel du Village and the Logan Inn in New Hope.
In the late 1800s, the Elkins Estate was built as a countryside retreat for railroad magnate William Lukens Elkins, who is credited with helping to form what would eventually become SEPTA and the Philadelphia Gas Works.
When Raheem Harvey discovered possible improprieties at his new employer, Alliance for Progress Charter School in North Philadelphia, he sounded the alarm.
Harvey, the director of business and compliance, notified officials earlier this year about what he saw as significant issues, he said: violations of state and local bidding requirements, a contract issued without board approval, and board members’ failure to disclose personal relationships with potential vendors.
He flagged a student enrollment problem and skipped payroll taxes.
Alliance for Progress’ leader and its board brushed him off, Harvey said in a recently filed whistleblower lawsuit. Ultimately, they disciplined him and, after threatening to demote him, he resigned.
School officials say Harvey’s story is untrue.
“We categorically deny all the allegations asserted by this disgruntled former employee,” Stacey Scott, CEO of Alliance for Progress, said in a statement.
Officials from the Philadelphia School District’s charter school office had no comment.
What are the allegations?
Harvey started working at Alliance for Progress, on Cecil B. Moore Avenue, in February.
By August, he began raising issues to his bosses, Harvey’s lawyers said in a lawsuit filed in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court.
They included a contract issued to a vendor for services related to a school playground — worth more than $75,000 — that was awarded without competitive bidding.
Alliance for Progress, Harvey said, “directly awarded the contract to a vendor whose principal is a personal friend of one of the AFPCS board members. The board member did not recuse himself from discussions or decisions related to the contract, despite the clear conflict of interest created by his close relationship with the vendor” — a violation of ethics rules, he said.
Harvey also said the school failed to follow state rules around enrollment procedures. Alliance for Progress says it provides enrollment preference for siblings of students. But, Harvey said, the school ignored him “and failed to apply its own sibling-preference policy to the sibling of a currently enrolled student. Instead, AFPCS placed the sibling on a waitlist and later pressured the child’s parents to withdraw the enrollment application.”
Scott, Harvey said, also violated federal privacy laws by providing someone outside the organization access to a student’s educational records — including academic and disciplinary records — without parental consent.
School officials also used Alliance for Progress credit cards to purchase food and other items through their personal accounts, according to the lawsuit complaint,“allowing them to aggregate rewards points and loyalty benefits that they did not return to AFPCS.”
Alliance for Progress also paid a retired employee for work with a paper check instead of going through its payroll system, the complaint alleges.
The school “issued payments in this manner to enable the retired employee to avoid paying taxes on the wages she received,” the lawsuit said.
‘Hostile and retaliatory’
According to Harvey, once he reported the compliance problems, Scott and other officials began targeting him — suggesting he was opening packages addressed to the school without authorization and purchasing office supplies without proper authorization.
Harvey was shut out of leadership meetings, the suit said, then reprimanded for failing to show up to a meeting, entering Scott’s office without permission, and placing an unauthorized order.
“Increasingly hostile and retaliatory conduct” was directed toward him, Harvey said. He was suspended for 10 days, and had his keys to the administrative offices taken away.
In September, a human resources official told Harvey “that he should forget about the compliance issues he had raised because they had been resolved” but provided no evidence. Harvey said she told him Alliance for Progress planned to demote him.
The school’s “wholesale failure to remediate the compliance concerns” and its “refusal to implement safeguards to protect him” from retaliatory treatment ultimately caused Harvey to resign on Sept. 30,according to the lawsuit.
Harvey is demanding reinstatement, plus back pay, benefits, seniority rights, and damages.
We’ll show you a photo taken in the Philly-area, you drop a pin where you think it was taken. Closer to the location results in a better score. This week’s theme is all about Hanukkah. Good luck!
Round #11
Question 1
Where is this synagogue?
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ClickTap on map to guess the location in the photo
ClickTap again to change your guess and hit submit when you're happy
You will be scored at the end. The closer to the location the better the score
Levi Jiang / Staff
Pretty good/Not bad/Way off! Your guess was from the location.Spot on! Your guess was exactly at the location. Here's also where a random selection of Inquirer readers guessed.
This is Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel on South 18th Street. The synagogue was formed through the 1964 merger of Beth Zion (created in 1946) and Beth Israel (created in 1840).
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Question 2
Where can you find this yellow statue?
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Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Pretty good/Not bad/Way off! Your guess was from the location.Spot on! Your guess was exactly at the location. Here's also where a random selection of Inquirer readers guessed.
The OY/YO Statue is located outside the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History. According to the museum, “YO” references the greeting, while “OY” is a common Yiddish phrase.
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Question 3
Where is this deli?
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Michael Klein / Staff
Pretty good/Not bad/Way off! Your guess was from the location.Spot on! Your guess was exactly at the location. Here's also where a random selection of Inquirer readers guessed.
This is Koch's Deli located on Locust Street in West Philly. The deli was created in 1966 by Sidney and Frances Koch and is known for its stacked sandwiches.
Your Score
ARank
Amazing work. You've achieved the miracle of the eight days!
BRank
Good stuff. You've lit most of the candles.
CRank
C is a passing grade, but most candles remain unlit.
DRank
D isn’t great. You just missed all eight nights!
FRank
We don’t want to say you failed, but you didn’t not fail.
You beat % of other Inquirer readers.
We’ll be back next Saturday for another round of Citywide Quest.
I was so close. If I had made it through one or two more green lights while driving from my last assignment… Or if I had not waited so long for the “right” car to pass in front of the building I was photographing for a real estate story…
Then I might’ve been there seconds earlier when Gen. Washington stood at the back of his SUV placing his sword on the hip of his dress uniform. Or photographed him walking through the empty parking garage.
Instead, I arrived at the elevators seconds after he did.
Historical interpreters Benjamin Franklin (from left) Gen. George Washington and President Abraham Lincoln are in the audience as the U.S. Mint unveils new coins for America’s 250th birthday.
There isn’t a day that goes by that I am not reminded how photography is all about the timing. And I don’t mean just the 1/500th of a second your camera shutter is open.
There is an expression “f/8 and be there” often attributed to legendary photographer Arthur “Weegee” Fellig. The “there” has come to mean not fussing over the technical aspects — an f-stop/lens aperture — of taking pictures but instead being “in the moment.”
Weegee, however, meant it literally. He was a New York crime scene photographer in the 1930s and 1940s famous for arriving before the police and made his living getting there and taking a picture before his competition (there were a dozen newspapers and tabloids in Manhattan back then).
Another “good timing” came for me last Saturday. I was in Center City with my family on my day off. There were so many people in the Christmas Village in LOVE Park we walked along the outskirts, where we found the annual Festibus competition. That’s where SEPTA employees volunteer their time to decorate buses for the holidays and compete for bragging rights. And let riders vote for their favorites among the eight decorated buses parked along JFK Boulevard and 15th Street.
I made a fast photo of SEPTA workers costumed as Care Bears who went over to a passing coworker stopped in traffic. But I couldn’t leave with only a photo of the backsides of mechanic Raymond Borges and operators Jose DeCos and James Smith.
So I stayed behind to document more of their greeting visitors and some of the other buses.
Walking out of the garage where the artists were working, I heard a news helicopter and looked up, then over to see a column of smoke rising to the north.
I got there as firefighters were just starting to climb up to the rowhouse roofs on North Lambert Street.
The fire, near La Salle University, was placed under control within an hour. But sadly, a 70-year-old mother of three did not get out in time and died in the blaze.
Since 1998 a black-and-white photo has appeared every Monday in staff photographer Tom Gralish’s “Scene Through the Lens” photo column in the print editions of The Inquirer’s local news section. Here are the most recent, in color:
December 8, 2025: The Benjamin Franklin Bridge and pedestrians on the Delaware River Trail are reflected in mirrored spheres of the “Weaver’s Knot: Sheet Bend” public artwork on Columbus Boulevard. The site-specific stainless steel piece located between the Cherry Street and Race Street Piers was commissioned by the City’s Public Art Office and the Delaware River Waterfront Corporation and created and installed in 2022 by the design and fabrication group Ball-Nogues Studio. The name recalls a history that dominated the region for hundreds of years. “Weaver’s knot” derives from use in textile mills and the “Sheet bend” or “sheet knot” was used on sailing vessels for bending ropes to sails. November 29, 2025: t’s ginkgo time in our region again when the distinctive fan-shaped leaves turn yellow and then, on one day, lose all their leaves at the same time laying a carpet on city streets and sidewalks. A squirrel leaps over leaves in the 18th Century Garden in Independence National Historical Park Nov. 25, 2025. The ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba) is considered a living fossil as it’s the only surviving species of a group of trees that existed before dinosaurs. Genetically, it has remained unchanged over the past 200 million years. William Hamilton, owner the Woodlands in SW Phila (no relation to Alexander Hamilton) brought the first ginkgo trees to North America in 1785.November 24, 2025: The old waiting room at 30th Street Station that most people only pass through on their way to the restrooms has been spiffed up with benches – and a Christmas tree. It was placed there this year in front of the 30-foot frieze, “The Spirit of Transportation” while the lobby of Amtrak’s $550 million station restoration is underway. The 1895 relief sculpture by Karl Bitter was originally hung in the Broad Street Station by City Hall, but was moved in 1933. It depicts travel from ancient to modern and even futuristic times. November 17, 2025: Students on a field trip from the Christian Academy in Brookhaven, Delaware County, pose for a group photo in front of the Liberty Bell in Independence National Historical Park on Thursday. The trip was planned weeks earlier, before they knew it would be on the day park buildings were reopening after the government shutdown ended. “We got so lucky,” a teacher said. Then corrected herself. “It’s because we prayed for it.” November 8, 2025: Multitasking during the Festival de Día de Muertos – Day of the Dead – in South Philadelphia.November 1, 2025: Marcy Boroff is at City Hall dressed as a Coke can, along with preschoolers and their caregivers, in support of former Mayor Jim Kenney’s 2017 tax on sweetened beverages. City Council is considering repealing the tax, which funds the city’s pre-K programs. October 25, 2025: Austin Gabauer, paint and production assistant at the Johnson Atelier, in Hamilton Twp, N.J. as the finished “O” letter awaits the return to Philadelphia. The “Y” part of the OY/YO sculpture is inside the painting booth. The well-known sculpture outside the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History was removed in May while construction continues on Market Street and has been undergoing refurbishment at the Atelier at the Grounds for Sculpture outside of Trenton.October 20, 2025:The yellow shipping container next to City Hall attracted a line of over 300 people that stretched around a corner of Dilworth Park. Bystanders wondered as they watched devotees reaching the front take their selfies inside a retro Philly diner-esque booth tableau. Followers on social media had been invited to “Climb on to immerse yourself in the worlds of Pleasing Fragrance, Big Lip, and exclusive treasures,” including a spin of the “Freebie Wheel,” for products of the unisex lifestyle brand Pleasing, created by former One Direction singer Harry Styles.October 11, 2025: Can you find the Phillie Phanatic, as he leaves a “Rally for Red October Bus Tour” stop in downtown Westmont, N.J. just before the start of the NLDS? There’s always next year and he’ll be back. The 2026 Spring Training schedule has yet to be announced by Major League Baseball, but Phillies pitchers and catchers generally first report to Clearwater, Florida in mid-February.October 6. 2025: Fluorescent orange safety cone, 28 in, Poly Ethylene. Right: Paint Torch (detail) Claes Oldenburg, 2011, Steel, Fiberglass Reinforced Plastic, Gelcoat and Polyurethane. (Gob of paint, 6 ft. Main sculpture, 51 ft.). Lenfest Plaza at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts on North Broad Street, across from the Convention Center.September 29, 2025: A concerned resident who follows Bucks County politics, Kevin Puls records the scene before a campaign rally for State Treasurer Stacy Garrity, the GOP candidate for governor. His T-shirt is “personal clickbait” with a url to direct people to the website for The Travis Manion Foundation created to empower veterans and families of fallen heroes. The image on the shirts is of Greg Stocker, one of the hosts of Kayal and Company, “A fun and entertaining conservative spin on Politics, News, and Sports,” mornings on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT.September 22, 2025: A shadow is cast by “The Cock’s Comb,” created by Alexander “Sandy” Calder in 1960, is the first work seen by visitors arriving at Calder Gardens, the new sanctuary on the Ben Franklin Parkway. The indoor and outdoor spaces feature the mobiles, stabiles, and paintings of Calder, who was born in Philadelphia in 1898, the third generation of the family’s artistic legacy in the city.September 15, 2025: Department of Streets Director of Operations Thomas Buck leaves City Hall following a news conference marking the activation of Automated Speed Enforcement (ASE) cameras on the Broad Street corridor – one the city’s busiest and most dangerous roads. The speed limit on the street, also named PA Route 611, is 25 mph.
AfterLincoln University’s homecoming in October ended with seven people shot, including one killed, the rural Chester County township where the school is located plans to pass new regulations on large events.
Several officials in Lower Oxford Township said there have been ongoing problems with parking, trash on neighbors’ lawns, disturbances and, in some cases, crime when the 1,650-student university hosts events. After the Oct. 25 shooting, when thousands of people gathered for homecoming, emergency personnel had to use all-terrain vehicles to transport patients on stretchers because ambulances could not access the campus, given how many cars were parked around the venue, they said.
“We have had meetings with people at Lincoln,” said township supervisor Noel Roy, who oversees emergency management. “They’ve been somewhat reluctant to do what needs to be done to try and control the situation.”
Lincoln University has declined to answer specific questions from The Inquirer, but President Brenda Allen at a board of trustees meeting last month acknowledged that changes were needed, especially around the school’s large events, and that the school has to do a better job of collaborating with the township.
“Our top priority remains the safety of our students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community,” the school said in a statement to The Inquirer Thursday. “The university continues to refine our safety measures and protocols.”
At a township supervisors meeting this week, university officials pledged to work with the township.
Lower Oxford Township officials meet and discuss a potential large event ordinance following the homecoming shooting at Lincoln University.
“We want to come together because we are a part of this community as well,” said Venus Boston, Lincoln’s general counsel.
Yeda Arscott, Lincoln’s associate vice president of facilities and program management, told supervisors the university is considering several steps to improve safety, including ending all outside events at dusk, eliminating open invitations, requiring guest registration, and canceling large events such as Spring Fling. The school also is looking at parking and safety protocols, she said.
Yeda Arscott, associate vice president director of facilities and program management at Lincoln, speaks at the Lower Oxford Township meeting and shares actions the university is considering following the homecoming shooting.
“This shows real commitment,” said Arscott, who lives five minutes from Lincoln, “but real safety requires joint planning between the township, Lincoln, other major businesses, our neighbors, and emergency services.”
Township and Lincoln officials said they plan to meet privately to discuss solutions.
“Our goal is to work with Lincoln to make this better,” said Kevin R. Martin, chairman of the board of supervisors. “We need to think this through, but we also have a sense of urgency because it does affect our community.”
Kevin R Martin, chairman of the township supervisors, said the township wants to work with Lincoln on improvements.
Chester County Commissioner Josh Maxwell said county officialsand the university also will meet in January to discuss best practices for emergency services and student and community safety.
“It’s important that the kids feel safe,” said Maxwell, who also is an adjunct professor at Lincoln. “No one wants this to ever happen again.”
The shooting remains under investigation.Jujuan Jeffers, 20, of Wilmington, was killed, and six others, ages 20 to 25, including a student, were also shot. Zecqueous Morgan-Thompson, 21, of Wilmington, was charged with possessing a concealed firearm without a license. Neither Jeffers nor Morgan-Thompson have any known connection to Lincoln.
Arscott also urged township leaders to “broaden the conversation beyond event permits” and look to address the problem of gun violence.
“We were a victim, too,” Boston said.
“We were a victim, too,” said Venus Boston, Lincoln University’s general counsel.
Tensions with neighbors
The proposed township ordinance would require those seeking to hold special events to apply for a permit 30 days in advance and outline how they will control the number of guests, traffic, alcohol, and security, said township solicitor Winifred Moran-Sebastian. The township couldapprove or reject applications.
Township supervisors last spring passed a parking ordinance to cope with access problems created during past large events at Lincoln, but parking at homecoming still led to issues for emergency responders.
Several residents who attended this week’smeeting were skeptical of Lincoln’s intent to make improvements and called for larger fines than the $1,000 proposed in the ordinance.
Vanessa Ross lives about a half a mile from campus and said she was afraid for her family the night of the homecoming shooting. She spoke at the Lower Oxford Township supervisors meeting.
“I feel my life is in jeopardy with how things are being currently managed,” said Lincoln neighbor Celestine Getty, fearing what could happen if vehicles were unable to get to her house in the event of an emergency.
Vanessa Ross, who has lived about a half mile from Lincoln for 14 years, said crime and disruption have happened at large Lincoln events for half those years.
“There is no excuse whatsoever why the college cannot increase their police force and install the metal detectors that are necessary,” she said. “I can’t even go see Barry Manilow in Philadelphia without going through a metal detector.”
Founded in 1854, Lincoln is known as the first degree-granting historically Black university in the nation. Its 429 acres are nestled in a township of farm fields with a little over 5,000 residents, the majority of them white. Racial tensions have come into play over the years, with township residents saying they have been unfairly accused of racism for raising safety issues.
Allen, the Lincoln president, has not pointed to racism as a factor in the conversations about safety, said Boston, the university’s solicitor.
A storied institution with recent safety issues
Lincoln has a storied history. The first presidents of both Nigeria and Ghana are Lincoln graduates, as are Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and poet Langston Hughes.
The school hasreceived $45 million in gifts fromphilanthropist MacKenzie Scott, ex-wife of Jeff Bezos. And Allen, who in 2020 had survived an internal battle to oust her and had her contract extended to 2030, was named a top historically Black college leader by a national nonprofitin 2021.
But over the last decade, the university has struggled with safety issues.
In spring 2023, two women were shot and injured on Lincoln’s campus during its annual Spring Fling event. In 2022, a student was fatally stabbed during a fight inside a dorm by the sister of a student. During an on-campus dance in 2018, 15 students were taken to the hospital following a brawl in which a security officer was assaulted. In 2016, there was a robbery and shooting on Lincoln’s campus following homecoming. And in 2015, Lincoln tightened security after shots were fired in a dorm.
Some residents said it’s time for the township to put in additional controls.
“We can no longer wait and see or hope the university will simply do the right thing,” said Andrew Cope, who lived near Lincoln for nearly two decades and still owns property there. “The pattern is too long, the consequences too severe, and the community’s trust too damaged.”
Carmina Taylor, former president of Lincoln parents association, addresses the Lower Oxford Township supervisors.
Carmina Taylor, who led Lincoln’s parent association from 2013 to 2016, said she has had longstanding safety concerns.
When a student was killed in the dorm in 2022, Taylor told The Inquirer she had previously sounded the alarm: “I had said, ‘If Lincoln doesn’t do something, we’re going to have a death on campus.’”
The university’s response to the homecoming shooting, said Taylor, who got a master’s degree from Lincoln in 2011 and whose son graduated from Lincoln in 2016, is “beyond fluff.”
“Until someone does something from the outside to bind them,” she said, nothing will change.
Security expert Brian Higgins said measures, including controlled entrances and screening of guests with hand-held wands, metal detectors or bag checks, are typically used for large crowd events. He acknowledged that imposing strict guest screening may not create the welcoming, upbeat environment characteristic of college homecomings.
“But in light of what happened, it’s very prudent to do so,” said Higgins, president of Group 77, a public safety and security consulting firm, based in the New York metro area.
Higgins, whosecompany has colleges among its clients, said drones increasingly are being usedas part of safety monitoring at large events. Traffic control measures and the setting of crowd size limits are other issues the school should consider, he said.
Anthony Floyd, a former police chief at Lincoln and a Philadelphia city police officer for about 20 years, said the university’s police chief and president should attend every township meeting and work more closely with the township on addressing safety issues.
Anthony Floyd Jr., who was police chief at Lincoln in 2013 and also had been a Philadelphia city cop, told the supervisors at the meeting that better coordination is needed between the community and the university. The school’s police chief and president should attend the supervisor meetings every month, give updates on safety and security, and be held accountable, he said.
Lincoln says it’s working on changes
Last month at a Lincoln board of trustees meeting, Allen, the president, said the campus had been focused on restoring a sense of safety for students and making sure they and staff had counseling support. Allen, a 1981 Lincoln graduate who has led the school since 2017, said the university was examining “safety protocols, parking, traffic, registration for guests,” and the process for inviting guests as part of its review process.
Lincoln University President Brenda A. Allen (left) announces plans for an after action review following the homecoming shooting.
Allen said the university is seeking feedback from the student government association and faculty and staff.
Roy, one of the township supervisors, saidparking restrictions put into place earlier this yearwere not heeded, and the township had to tow 60 cars the night of the homecoming shooting.
“Every time they towed a car, another car would pull into that space,” he said.
An event that would draw 10,000 people to a township with half that population and no police force is concerning, said Moran-Sebastian, the township solicitor. Lower Oxford relies on Pennsylvania State Police for law enforcement. For the homecoming event, the university requested state police, but only got two, Arscott, the facilities’ head, said.
Deborah J Kinney, secretary/treasurer and code enforcement officer, listens during the Lower Oxford Township supervisors meeting.
Township officials have been frustrated with the responses from Lincoln in the past. When a meeting was held in November 2024 to discuss parking-related problems during the previous Spring Fling event, Allen said she didn’t need the township’s help, said Deborah Kinney, township secretary/treasurer and codes enforcement officer. Kinney said she had suggested an event process that would have included a plan for parking.
“So we decided we needed to be proactive on our end, not just for our residents but for their students,” Kinney said. “It’s not the students. It’s the outside influences that are coming in to these events.”
She also said that in 2024, Lincoln accounted for 183, or 26%, of the township’s emergency calls.
Winfred Moran-Sebastian, Lower Oxford Township solicitor, outlines the proposed ordinance to regulate large events in the township. The ordinance is still under draft.
Veronica Carr, a 2016 Lincoln alumna, said she had been concerned about safety when she was a student, and conditions seem to have gotten worse. She did not attend homecoming.
Carr, who works for an African American heritage consulting firm and lives in North Carolina, said she is concerned that two people have been killed on the campus in less than four years.
The Phillies resigning Kyle Schwarber (and extending Rob Thomson): B-
Look, we love Kyle Schwarber. The city loves Kyle Schwarber. Dogs wearing tiny Schwarber jerseys love Kyle Schwarber. The man hits baseballs into orbit, leads the clubhouse, and has basically willed this team to look alive some Septembers when vibes were bleak. Him staying in Philly always felt inevitable.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth we’re all circling: We’ve seen this movie before.
Schwarber is now locked in through age 37. Harper, Turner, Nola — all extended into their late 30s too. The Phillies are doubling (and tripling) down on the same aging core that keeps putting up big regular seasons and then… evaporating in October.
Yes, Schwarber smashed 56 homers in 2025. Yes, he’s historically elite. Yes, Rob Thomson deserved his extension, four straight postseasons don’t grow on trees. But also: This team has repeatedly stalled in the playoffs, and running it back with the same core isn’t exactly a bold correction.
Dombrowski insists they’re “not just bringing the band back,” but right now it feels a lot like the band tuning up the same setlist and we already know how ends: a killer eighth-inning rally in June, a heartbreaking NLDS in October.
If the Phillies really want a different result, they still need a third true power bat behind Schwarber and Harper — the Rhys Hoskins void has been haunting them for three seasons. Until they fill it, this roster is basically an expensive version of “just try that again.”
FanDuel, DraftKings, and other online gambling apps are displayed on a phone in San Francisco, Sept. 26, 2022.
Philly is the No. 1 market for online gambling: D-
Philly finally beat New York and Vegas at something — unfortunately, it’s being the top target for online gambling ads. Companies dropped $37 million this year convincing us that our phones are tiny casinos that fit in our pockets and aren’t ruining our credit scores.
And guess what? It worked! Calls to 1-800-GAMBLER about online betting have nearly tripled since 2021. Penn State says 30% of Pennsylvanians now bet regularly, and about 785,000 people in our commonwealth of 13 millionare estimated to be problem gamblers, which, coincidentally, is also the number of people who think the Sixers will “definitely cover tonight.”
The hotline stories are brutal: drained retirements, missed mortgages, broken marriages, people betting on Russian table tennis at 3 a.m.
Yes, Harrisburg pockets tax money. No, that does not offset the fact that some folks are blowing entire paychecks faster than a Broad Street Line train skips your station.
The Eagles have installed the “positivity rabbit” into the locker room
It showed up today and the offensive line stressed to me they are not sad they just wanted a good vibes bunny 👍 pic.twitter.com/zJi0M93SEr
The Eagles’ positivity rabbit: B for bunny (but trending toward D if they keep losing)
Only in Philadelphia could a three-game skid lead to the installation of a giant inflatable “positivity rabbit” in the Eagles’ locker room, the kind of holiday décor your aunt buys at Lowe’s, except this one is supposed to fix the offense.
According to NBC Sports Philly, the O-line wanted “good vibes.” So the Eagles brought in a five-foot inflatable bunny. Reddit immediately turned it into a full-blown prophecy, a meme, and possibly a new religion. Some fans think it’s the 2025 answer to the underdog masks; others think it looks like the guy who egged Patullo’s house finally got caught.
And then Jason Kelce stepped in with the dagger: “To be honest, I don’t really like the rabbit. It’s a little hokey… It didn’t work. You have to ditch the rabbit.”
The vibes bunny now sits at a dangerous crossroads. If the Birds win out: parade float. Philly embraces it forever. Etsy shops explode. If they don’t: that thing gets thrown on I-95 like HitchBOT.
The Miracle on South 13th Street block party is filled with Christmas lights and decorations in 2021.
Miracle on South 13th Street traffic chaos: C+
South Philly’s favorite holiday tradition is back — and so is the gridlock, horn-honking, and pure, uncut neighborhood rage that comes with funneling half the region down a street roughly the width of a rowhouse hallway.
This year, 6abc reported that Morris Street briefly closed and pushed even more cars onto 13th, turning a beloved Christmas display into a live reenactment of Uncle Frank screaming “Look what you did, you little jerk!” Residents are understandably asking the city the obvious South Philly question: How exactly is an ambulance supposed to get through when Karen from Cherry Hill parks her Highlander on a diagonal to get the perfect photo?
Neighbors want more open-street hours, as in let people walk, let cars chill. Councilmember Squilla says he’s willing to talk about it, which is Philly for “maybe… if everyone stops yelling.”
The former Painted Bride Art Center at 230 Vine St. is shown Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025, during demolition to make way for new apartments and commercial space.
The Painted Bride’s long fall: D
The demolition of the Painted Bride isn’t just another development story. It’s the slow, painful end of something that felt uniquely, defiantly Philadelphia. After nearly six years of lawsuits, appeals, zoning wars, neighbor fights, preservation pleas, and enough public testimony to qualify as its own Fringe Festival show, the Old City building that once held Isaiah Zagar’s 7,000-square-foot mosaic is officially coming down.
If you grew up here, walked past it, or just have a pulse, the loss hits hard. The Painted Bride wasn’t a blank canvas waiting for a luxury building. It was already the art. It was the kind of place tourists would stumble upon, go “What is this?” and locals would answer, “Oh, that’s just Philly being weird and beautiful.” Now it’ll be dust, plywood fencing, and a future apartment building trying its best to pretend a few salvaged tiles can replace an entire iconic facade.
Neighbors didn’t want height. The Bride didn’t want the building. The city didn’t want to officially call it historic. The developer wanted to preserve it until a court told him he couldn’t.
This is the kind of loss that feels bigger than one building. Philly’s magic is fragile. Sometimes it’s protected (hello, Wanamaker Organ), and sometimes it’s chipped away, boxed up, and repurposed as lobby decor.
An artist named Ham, the architect of this cold weather performance piece, in Philadelphia, December 11, 2025.
A nearly-naked man standing on a box by the Liberty Bell: A+
Tourists stared. Rangers grew concerned. Locals did what locals always do — tried to figure out if this was art, a bet, or a fantasy-football punishment gone horribly wrong.
Turns out it was art. The man, an artist from Baltimore named Ham (“like the sandwich”), calls the whole thing a commentary on social media. Instead of posting content, he becomes the content.
Ham has done this in New York, Berlin, and even a Norwegian village but claimed Philly gave him the best interactions: confused tourists, National Park rangers offering him clothing, a police officer checking in, and Philadelphians who stopped just long enough to ask, “Buddy… why?”
In a very Philly twist, he’s putting the money people hand him toward an engagement ring, which somehow makes the whole thing feel less like performance art and more like a South Street side quest.
No matter how you interpret it, it’s peak Philadelphia: a nearly naked man shivering by one of America’s most sacred monuments, and the city responding with equal parts curiosity, concern, and “yeah, that tracks.”
Ham planned to stand out there through the weekend — but only until around 4:30 p.m., because even performance artists know better than to be half-naked in Center City after dark.
They had moved with surgical precision, the two masked thieves and their getaway driver. Their MO was simple: ambush an armored truck guard, seize his service weapon, grab his delivery bag, then go.
In the space of six early summer days, they executed two robberies, each in broad daylight, in busy Philadelphia shopping centers.
Each heist had taken only a few moments, and no one had been injured. But an unexpected wrinkle — a flinch, a scream, a jumpy truck guard with more bullets than sense — could easily escalate a robbery into a tragedy.
To members of the crew, though, this was all high comedy.
In a group chat after the second stickup, four men — two of whom authorities would later identify as members of the robbery ring — joked about a Fox 29 Instagram post that detailed the heists.
“Don’t say my name lol,” wrote one man.
Another suggested that law enforcement would set a trap for the thieves.
The tone of the group chat is breezy, dotted with laugh-crying emojis.
On June 26, as Philadelphia recovered from three consecutive days of 99-degree heat, armed thieves robbed a Loomis driver outside a Crescentville Aldi.
A federal agent would later recount this exchange, and several others, in a 29-page affidavit that details how an alphabet soup of agencies — the FBI’s Violent Crime Task Force, Philadelphia police, Cheltenham police, the District Attorney’s Office, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — worked to identify, track, and ultimately arrest members of the crew that allegedly attempted to rob five armored truck drivers between June 26 and Aug. 12.
This was not a simple whodunnit, solved with TV-drama efficiency.
It took a mélange of elements — old-fashioned detective work, high-tech digital surveillance, an anonymous tip, and a seemingly unrelated probe into automobile thefts — to help authorities zero in on the armored truck thieves.
Among the information that investigators collected along the way was the conversation about the Fox 29 post, which was sent to two members of the robbery crew and a third man by Tykee Smith, a Tampa Bay Buccaneers safety.
Smith, 24, grew up in West Philly, but his connection to the crew is unclear. He has not been accused of committing a crime. The FBI did not redact his Instagram handle from the affidavit, but did elect to hide the identities of other figures in the case.
Asked about Smith, an FBI spokesperson wrote in an email: “I would have to defer to the public documents.”
Representatives for Smith and for the Buccaneers declined to comment.
For a while, after their busy summer, the thieves seemingly went underground.
Then, in early fall, investigators learned that the crew had obtained a stolen white Honda Accord with a paper license plate tag.
On Oct. 3, police officers spotted the Accord outside a City Avenue Target — lurking near a Brinks truck.
The Accord peeled off, igniting a heart-thumping chase that spilled into Lower Merion Township, where the driver and his passenger ditched the sedan on a leafy, horseshoe-shaped road.
Police and news helicopters were soon thrumming over the area’s million-dollar properties. Some curious residents ventured outside and were met by teams of rifle-wielding cops who hollered to get back in their homes.
The officers’ radios hissed with speculation: Had the men fled along the nearby Cynwyd Heritage Trail, which leads to Manayunk?
By early afternoon, the suspense — and the manhunt — had drawn to a close.
Officers apprehended one individual, Mujahid Davis, hiding in the basement window well of a house on Colwyn Lane.
His partner managed to evade the dragnet in Lower Merion Township with the help of someone who picked him up in a Dodge Charger.
The escape was short-lived: Police caught up to the Charger soon after in West Philly and arrested the passenger, Dante Shackleford.
On Oct. 16, a federal grand jury charged Shackleford, 26, with one count of Hobbs Act robbery for stealing more than $100,000 from a Brinks driver on Aug. 12, attempted robberies on July 22 and Oct. 3, and brandishing a firearm in relation to a crime of violence.
It was Shackleford who had joked to not say his name when Smith shared the Instagram post about the robberies. Cell tower data showed that his phone was at the scene of some of the summer heists.
If convicted, Shackleford’s sentence could range from seven years to life in prison. He has pleaded not guilty. His attorney, Angela Levy, declined to comment.
Davis, 24, was charged with the Oct. 3 attempted robbery. He has pleaded not guilty.
More indictments might follow in January, when trial dates for Shackleford and Davis will be set, the records show.
Vito Roselli, a retired FBI agent who once worked on bank and armored car robbery investigations in Philadelphia, called the phone evidence in the affidavit “devastating.”
“A lot of robbery crews wise up with cell phones, and just use burner phones. It’s spy tradecraft,” he said. “This crew is not doing that. They’re pretty open about what they’re doing, and they’re running their mouths.”
‘Take all the tracking s— out’
While the FBI tried in early July to generate leads on Philly’s armored truck bandits, other law enforcement agencies were busy in the city with the seemingly unrelated pursuit of an alleged car thief and gun dealer.
Salim Sutton, 31, had been on the run since February. A Common Pleas Court judge had placed Sutton on house arrest while he awaited trial on firearms and theft charges. But Sutton had other plans, and allegedly cut off an ankle bracelet monitor, then absconded.
In June, police officers began investigating a series of complaints about cars having been stolen or broken into near Front and Callowhill Streets. Surveillance footage gave them a look at the alleged culprit: Sutton.
Investigators determined that Sutton had been selling firearms that he’d stolen from vehicles. Given the widening scope of Sutton’s alleged offenses, police and the District Attorney’s Office’s Gun Violence Task Force sought the assistance of the ATF.
The added manpower almost immediately yielded results. On July 10, ATF agents nearly captured Sutton, but he slipped beyond their grasp while riding in a black Nissan Maxima with tinted windows, black rims, and a blacked-out rear emblem.
Afterward, Sutton joked about the encounter on Instagram.
The next day, Sutton traded text messages with a man who wanted to purchase a stolen car.
“I’m bout to hurry up and take all the tracking s— out of it now,” Sutton wrote, according to the records.
“Got you send a cash app,” replied the man, whom the FBI refers to only as “Suspect 1.”
Four days later, on July 15, a Brinks guard parked on Castor Avenue in Rhawnhurst to make a delivery to a Planned Parenthood office.
A Brinks driver opened fired when armed thieves tried to rob him near a Planned Parenthood office on Castor Avenue.
The guard noticed that he was being approached by a man who was wearing a black facemask, a black hoodie, and latex gloves — and brandishing a handgun.
A second man, armed with an AR-style rifle, lurked near the intersection of Castor and Emerson.
The guard drew his service weapon and opened fire, getting off eight shots but not hitting anything.
One of the would-be robbers ran away. Surveillance cameras recorded his partner fleeing in a getaway car: a black Nissan Maxima with tinted windows, black rims, and a blacked-out rear emblem.
Hours after the attempted heist, photos of the getaway began to circulate across social media. Sutton saw one such image on social media, a clear look at the Nissan’s trunk — and its license plate.
He took a screen shot, then messaged the man to whom he had sold the Nissan and asked whether he had switched the car’s license plate.
The two men began discussing more vehicle transactions. Sutton said he had a black 2015 Mercedes-Benz S550 that he could sell for $800.
For the buyer, the price was too steep. He explained that he needed something cheaper, maybe in the $200 to $300 range, just so long as its windows were tinted.
“…we use em for bouncing,” he wrote, “that’s it[,] not to have[.]”
Eyes in the sky
As Philadelphia fell deeper into an uncomfortable, humid summer — punctuated by an eight-day garbage strike — the FBI was still trying to identify the men responsible for the armored truck heists.
They knew that after the first robbery, of a Loomis guard on June 26, two masked thieves and a driver escaped with a meager haul — the guard’s handgun, and a canvas bag that contained $1,000 — in a gray or brown Nissan Altima with tinted windows.
Philadelphia police stopped the Altima on July 2. Its license plate had been stolen from another car.
Officers determined that the driver had nothing to do with the heists. But he did share a valuable piece of information: He had rented the Altima, he said, from someone on Instagram.
Eyewitnesses watched as three armed men ambushed a Brinks guard outside a Dollar General in Holmesburg on July 2.
On July 22, the stick-up crew struck again.
A Brinks driver climbed out of his truck to make a delivery to an H Mart grocery store in a Cheltenham Township shopping center. He realized he was being watched by three people in a black Dodge Durango.
Each of the occupants was masked. Two appeared armed with what the Brinks driver said he thought was a long gun.
The driver darted into H Mart and called police.
For the crew, there was only one sensible option: they had to drive away before patrol cops could reach the H Mart.
But the getaway was not entirely clean. Surveillance cameras recorded footage of the Durango arriving at the shopping center’s parking lot at 8:57 a.m.
Unbeknownst to the thieves, an automated license plate reader had also captured a clear look that morning at the Durango — and its license plate — riding on North Broad Street.
‘Don’t f— move’
The two parallel investigations — the ATF’s pursuit of a car thief and the FBI’s hunt for the armored truck bandits — would soon dovetail.
On Aug. 5, through a combination of physical and video surveillance, investigators saw Sutton driving a sport utility vehicle: a black Dodge Durango. Its license plate matched the Durango that had stalked a Brinks driver at the More Shopping Center two weeks earlier.
On Aug. 7, the ATF arrested Sutton. Investigators quickly obtained state and federal warrants to begin extracting data from Sutton’s phone.
The DA’s Office filed more than a dozen charges against Sutton, including theft, receiving stolen property, conspiracy, and firearms violations, and set his bail at $6.7 million. His attorney could not be reached for comment.
Authorities now had an extensive record of Sutton’s interactions with members of the armored heist crew, who were about to resurface.
The heist grew ambushed a Brinks driver near an H Mart on Old York Road — and escaped with more than $100,000.
On Aug. 12, at 10:22 a.m., a female Brinks driver carried a delivery satchel towards the same H Mart that the thieves had targeted in July.
When she was mere steps from the store’s entrance, two robbers pounced.
One pressed the barrel of an AR-style rifle against her neck, according to court records.
“Don’t f— move, don’t f— move,” he said. “Give it to me.”
The other assailant pressed a handgun against the woman’s back. They took her service weapon and the satchel, which held $119,100, then fled into a waiting black Acura sedan.
Two days later, a Cheltenham Township police detective opened a letter that had been mailed to the department’s headquarters. The handwritten message claimed that a paralyzed man was responsible for planning the recent H Mart robberies. The writer also divulged the identity of one of the alleged thieves.
His name was Dante Shackleford.
Fresh lead in hand, the FBI began collecting every digital footprint that it could trace to Shackleford: cell phone records, social media activity, a newly opened bank account.
The records showed that Shackleford and the paralyzed man — whom the FBI referred to as “Suspect 1” — were indeed associates and had shared Instagram posts and messages with one another.
Among the exchanges that would be recounted in a later affidavit was the Fox 29 post that Smith — the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defensive back, who attended Imhotep Institute Charter High School in Philadelphia — had sent through Instagram to Shackleford, “Suspect 1,” and another man.
In a bid to gather even more evidence, the FBI on Aug. 26 announced a $10,000 reward for information that could lead to the arrests and convictions of the crew’s members.
Investigators found Shackleford’s number, meanwhile, in Sutton’s phone.
And cell tower data indicated that Shackleford’s phone was at the scene of three of the heist crew’s crimes, during the same window of time that the robberies occurred.
City surveillance cameras and cell phone location data provided another crucial piece of information: As of Oct. 2, Shackleford was likely operating or a passenger in a stolen white Honda Accord.
‘Get back inside!’
A day later, when Philadelphia police chased Shackleford and Mujahid Davis into Lower Merion Township, investigators were tracking Shackleford’s cell phone location data.
With law enforcement close behind them, Shackleford and Davis ditched the Accord on Snowden Road, a gently curving, tree-lined block in Bala Cynwyd.
Christine Weatherwax was getting ready to make a late morning supermarket trip when she heard helicopters hovering over her house on Snowden.
She stepped outside and saw that someone had parked a sedan — a white Accord — against her husband’s Jeep.
Residents on Snowden Road in Bala Cynwyd found helicopters and scores of police outside their homes on Oct. 3 — and a stolen Honda Accord that had been abandoned by the suspects on their block.
“My husband thought someone had forgotten to put on their parking brake,” said Weatherwax, 51. “He started walking around, looking for the owner.”
Another neighbor, John Wuetig, ventured outside and fixed on an unusual sight: 10 cops, rifles in hand, marching down the street, accompanied by eager police canines.
“The officers yelled, ‘Get back inside!’” Wuetig, 51, recalled.
Later, Wuetig reviewed his Ring camera footage and saw a sequence that he and the officers had missed: two individuals running from the Accord.
As they attempted to flee, the men shed some of their clothes, the Honda’s key fob, and a Glock handgun in neighbors’ yards, according to court records.
In the Accord, police would find an AR-style pistol.
Some residents spotted Davis on Colwyn Lane, a 14-minute walk from Snowden Road.
Police swept down the block, and found a house with an unopened front door.
The property owner, Todd Miselis, 50, had left to run to a store. Inside, a friend of his slept in a guest bedroom.
“I got a text from my friend that said, ‘911. Cops are all over!’”
Miselis wondered if his friend was joking.
He returned home and found his closet doors ajar. It appeared that someone had rummaged under his beds. His friend then explained that five armed cops had barged into Miselis’ house and woken him by pointing flashlights in his face.
Soon after, the officers found Davis hiding in the basement window well of Miselis’ neighbor.
But where was Shackleford?
A day earlier, the FBI had learned through surveillance footage that Shackleford had been riding in a white Dodge Charger.
That information was shared across police radio. Officers soon spotted the Charger in West Philadelphia, where it came to a stop at 52nd and Parrish Streets.
Shackleford and the driver, whose name has not been released, were arrested without incident.
At the scene, one investigator decided to dial a number that had helped unlock a significant portion of the case.
Inside the Dodge Charger, Shackleford’s phone began to ring.
The first measurable snowfall of the winter of 2025-26 evidently is all but a done deal for Philly this weekend, and it has a chance to be the biggest in five winters — not that the bar is ultra-high in a period when snow has been mightily lacking.
The National Weather Service Saturday has issued a winter storm warning for 3 to 5 inches throughout the region, listing a 98% likelihood of at least an inch.
The AccuWeather Inc. forecast was similar.
The weather service foresaw a 76% chance of 4 inches in the immediate Philly area, and a 43% chance of 6 or more.
With the caveat that timing and duration of precipitation aren’t in the wheelhouse of atmospheric science, the weather service is expecting snow or snow mixed with rain to start late Saturday night.
If it’s a mix at the outset it would quickly become all snow as temperatures fall below freezing, and end around daybreak. As the weather service pointed out, the timing couldn’t be much better for minimizing disruption.
However, snow showers and wind chills in the teens are expected when the Eagles host the Oakland Raiders in South Philly.
The accumulating snow would be generated primarily by an upper-air disturbance, said Matt Benz, senior meteorologist with AccuWeather. It’s possible that the storm may regroup off the coast; however, that “probably will form too late to have any impact,” Benz said.
The weather service said inch-an-hour snowfall rates are possible in the early morning hours of Sunday.
And the snow is likely to stick around until at least midweek, with high temperatures Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday expected to be around freezing or lower and the sun angles about as low as they get.
After a 3.1-inch snowfall in February, the temperature climbed to near 50 a day later, and the strengthening sun made quick work of the snow cover.
That February snow turned out to be the biggest of a season in which the 8.1-inch total at Philadelphia International Airport barely bested the 8 inches of New Orleans. That winter, the I-95 corridor found itself in a snow hole, and Philly a snow hole within a snow hole. The highest total in the winter of 2023-24 was 4.6 inches during a snowy January week.
Last season, snow fell to the north, west, and south, and that trend has continued in the early going. With 6 inches so far this winter, Richmond, Va., now has measured 22.8 inches since last December, nearly triple the Philly total.
Official totals at Philadelphia International Airport have been significantly below normal for four consecutive winters. The normal for a season is 23.1 inches.
The meteorological winter, which began Dec. 1, certainly is off to a wintry start, with temperatures averaging more than 6 degrees below normal.
It is not off to a particularly wet start, however, and whatever falls this weekend isn’t expected to exceed a half inch of liquid.
In its long-term outlooks through Dec. 26, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center is on the fence regarding whether precipitation will be above or below normal.
With high confidence it is calling for a national warm-up.
In any given year, the odds are greatly against Christmas snow in Philly or elsewhere along the I-95 corridor.
But it does look like the region is about to get a white Sunday.
