Brian Finnegan, Brixmor Property Group’s new CEO, is a true Philadelphian.
He was born in Southwest Philly, spent his formative years in Roxborough, and graduated from St. Joe’s Prep. He met his wife, Katie, at a Halloween party in his mother’s Packer Park backyard in 2009, while just down the road the Phillies played the Yankees in the World Series and Pearl Jam closed the Spectrum.
Finnegan, now 45, can’t give up his Eagles season tickets, despite living outside New York and traveling the world as a real estate executive, When he can’t make games, he can usually count on his 73-year-old mother, Geraldine, to take the seats.
Brian Finnegan, who was named CEO of Brixmor Property Group last month, said he’s especially proud of the company’s commitment to its more than 20 shopping centers in and around Philadelphia, where he grew up.
Finnegan lives in Rye, N.Y., with Katie and their three young daughters, Magnolia, Daisy, and Poppy.
The company has invested about $180 million in its Philly portfolio over the past nine years, Finnegan said, and calls itself the largest operator of open-air shopping centers in the region.
The following interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
How would you say Brixmor is doing overall?
The company is in the best position it’s ever been. We’re signing rents at the highest level that we ever have. We have occupancy levels that are close to the highest we’ve had.
Consumers today are demanding much more of the suburbs in terms of the types of services that they’re looking for, the types of restaurant options that they’re looking for. And that’s allowed us to really improve the merchandising mix at our shopping centers with better food and beverage options and better service options in terms of health and wellness.
Why do you think Brixmor shopping centers are thriving while many brick-and-mortar stores falter?
Grocers, especially [tenants like Sprouts, Whole Foods, and McCaffrey’s], have really invested in their stores, and they’re drawing a lot of traffic.
Sprouts is among the retailers located at Roosevelt Mall in Northeast Philadelphia, one of Brixmor Property Group’s complexes in the region.
As it relates to fitness and wellness, and higher quality food and beverage options, I think consumers today care more about what they’re putting in their bodies and how they look than they ever have.
You have to create an environment at specific shopping centers where if one tenant draws traffic, another tenant can complement them.
It really matters who your neighbor is, so if you’re able to put a strong merchandising mix together, which we’ve been able to do at our centers in Philadelphia, you’re really going to see traffic.
The Ross Dress for Less at Roosevelt Mall is one of several off-price retailers that have found success in Brixmor Property Group centers, according to CEO Brian Finnegan.
What would you like to accomplish as CEO?
We’d love to find some new opportunities to grow our footprint in Philadelphia.
The deals that we’ve done in Philadelphia, many of them are [with retailers new to Brixmor’s national portfolio], like with Lululemon, like with Free People, like with Warby Parker, like with Pottery Barn and Williams-Sonoma.
We think about how our centers connect with the communities that we’re in. We’re part of those communities. We’re actually landlords to Philadelphia institutions like Chickie’s & Pete’s and P.J. Whelihan’s.
The more that we can tie our assets with retailers that are relevant to those communities, the better.
What makes you optimistic about shopping centers amid all the e-commerce competition?
What [the pandemic] showed was that people like connectivity. They don’t like to just have things delivered to their door. They want to go out and experience things. They want to touch and feel things.
Our traffic since the pandemic across the entire portfolio is up 7%.
Barnes & Noble is shown at Barn Plaza shopping center in Doylestown, which is one of more than 20 complexes in the region owned by Brixmor Property Group.
If you talk to a lot of these major retailers, what they’ll say is the store is the center of everything that they do. They’re utilizing that store to be able to connect with the consumer in store, at delivery, as part of pickup.
I’m pretty bullish. There are a lot of retailers that continue to thrive despite the fact that consumers have options to be able to get something online if they wanted to.
Amid President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration and deployment of federal officers to cities across the country, students at Philadelphia-area colleges are protesting against the appearance of U.S. Customs and Border Protection at campus career fairs.
At least four local universities — Thomas Jefferson, Villanova, Temple, and Rowan — have faced opposition to allowing recruitment in recent months.
A petition circulated at Jefferson last week sought to keep CBP from appearing at a campus career event. CBP and ICE — both agencies that enforce immigration laws under the Department of Homeland Security — have been at the center of a national debate after two Minneapolis residents were killed by federal immigration enforcement agents in shootings now under investigation.
“Due to the harm CBP has caused to communities across the nation, it is abhorrent for TJU to accept CBP at their institution,” said anoccupational therapy student who signed the petition and asked that her name be withheld, fearing retribution. “I don’t think any institution should be encouraging students to get involved in these kinds of agencies, given the current climate.”
But the petition has since come down, the student said, and CBP is not on the list of employers due to appear at the event, called the 2026 Career Day and Design Expo, on Thursday at the East Falls campus. Jefferson has not acknowledged that CBP was on the list initially or responded to questions on whether it was removed.
CBP, which has offices in Philadelphia, has appeared at campus career events in the area in the past.
An email seeking comment from CBP’s media office was not returned.
At Rowan University in New Jersey earlier this month, the participation of CBP’s Trade Regulatory Audit Philadelphia Field Office in a career fair drew some student protest. Members of a student activist group distributed fliers speaking out against CBP during the fair, according to Rowan’s student newspaper, the Whit, and campus police and administration officials came to the scene.
The agency also reserved a table and came to afall event at Rowan to share information about accounting-related auditing internships, said Rowan spokesperson Joe Cardona,and has done so at the public university for the last decade.
Rowan’s Rohrer College of Business Center for Professional Development hosts more than 200 employers each year, including local, state, and federal agencies as well as private-sector groups, he said.
“The presence of any employer on campus does not constitute institutional endorsement of that organization’s policies or actions,” Cardona said. “Rather, it reflects our commitment to supporting student career exploration while upholding principles of open access and free expression.”
At Villanova, CBP pulled out of a career fair it had planned to attend earlier this month, according to the Villanovan, the student newspaper. The withdrawal followed criticism on social media about the organization’s planned appearance.
The organizer of an Instagram account that opposed the agency’s participation said they wished that Villanova had made the decision to disallow the group rather than the group withdrawing, according to the student newspaper.
“I think a lot of students will feel a lot safer and more comfortable attending this Career Fair,” the organizer said. “But it doesn’t take away the anger that this was ever something that was gonna happen.”
Villanova said in a statement that CBP‘sOffice of Trade had participated in prior career events and that employers with prior participation were contacted “through standard outreach” about this year’s event.
Temple’s law school last semester had planned to host a “Coffee and Careers” networking event with a DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement lawyer but later canceled it, according to the Temple News, the student newspaper. The event was replaced with a talk on public interest law by Philadelphia City Councilmember Rue Landau.
DHS “chose to engage directly with students interested in DHS opportunities rather than participate in a scheduled career event,” Temple spokesperson Steve Orbanek said.
He also noted that “career fairs are university-sponsored events, and actions that disrupt these events may violate university policy and established on-campus demonstration guidelines.”
Bob Borzillo has a deal with his wife Terri: She puts everything in the dishwasher, but he has to unload it.
That’s what he was doing on a night in November, after the couple had arrived back home in Willistown from Barcelona. He was putting the very last thing — a wine glass — away. That’s where the 65-year-old’s memory stops.
But for Terri Borzillo, also 65, that’s where a terrifying ordeal began.
She had been just a few feet away, writing in her journal as her husband unloaded the dishwasher in the background. She heard him groan and glass shatter. She got up to help him, expecting to find him picking up glass shards. Instead she found him on the floor, unresponsive.
What they did not know then was that a piece of plaque had broken off, completely blocking his artery. He was in cardiac arrest — not breathing, no pulse. After having walked around Barcelona, averaging 18,000 steps a day, he had no symptoms, no warning signs, until he collapsed in their kitchen.
More than 350,000 people annually experience cardiac arrestoutside hospitals, and only one in 10 survives, said Jeffrey Salvatore, the vice president of community impact for the American Heart Association of Greater Philadelphia.
The association has been leading a campaign to teach more teens and adults hands-only CPR to increase bystander response rates. Nationally, 40% of those who experience cardiac arrest each year are helped by a bystander. The rate in the Philadelphia region is significantly lower: less than 26%.
The association also holds telecommunicator CPR training, so dispatchers can instruct people over the phone on how to provide CPR, said Salvatore.
“Cardiac arrest is 100% fatal without any intervention. If nobody does anything for the person, there’s no chance of survival,” he said. “By just calling 911 and just doing compressions, you can still double someone’s chance of survival.”
Terri Borzillo immediately went into action, calling 911.
“I think my husband’s having a heart attack,” she remembers screaming to the dispatcher.
Calmly, the Chester County dispatcher, Kayla Wettlaufer, had Borzillo describe her husband’s condition.
“She said, ‘OK, lady, get control of yourself. We’re going to do this together,’” Borzillo recalls. “By the command in her voice, and because there was no option, I had to do this.”
Wettlaufer led Borzillo through CPR over the phone — telling her where to place her hands, when to compress. Wettlaufer even told her when it was time to unlock the front door so the nearby first responders could get in.
“It was horrible to watch my husband in that condition, and it was horrible to know that I had the balance of his life in my hands,” Borzillo said.
With Wetlaufer guiding her — and, she swears, every doctor in heaven — she did compressions until the EMTs arrived, using paddles to restart his heart.
As the EMTs wheeled Bob Borzillo out, Terri Borzillo retrieved the bottles of holy water they had picked up at Our Lady Lourdes in Barcelona. She sprayed her husband and the EMTs.
It got her an odd look, but, she said, “For somebody who has deep faith, I know all the angels and saints were there with us, and we’re smiling today instead of crying,” she said.
Bob Borzillo, left, takes a photo with two first responders who arrived to his home in November when he was in cardiac arrest.
Terri Borzillo’s faith runs back to their first date, more than 40 years ago. It was 1982, she was single, and her coworker asked her if she’d like to meet a nice guy. What do I have to lose? she thought. Acting as an intermediary, that colleague — a friend of Bob Borzillo’s family — told Bob about Terri. The young man’s father happened to know Terri’s father. He told his son, “Call that girl.” Bob listened.
On their blind date, Terri Borzilloknew he was the one. There was something to how he talked, explaining — of all things — turbine generators.
He really was a nice guy, she thought. (“I was a nerd,” he said.) She felt something click. Dear God, she thought, let him ask me out again.
One big Italian wedding, three sons, and seven grandchildren later, the two have lived in Chester County for more than 40 years.
This experience has made him proud to be a county resident, Bob Borzillo said. After he was released from the hospital a few days later, Borzillo went to the firehouse and met the first responders. He and his wife met Wettlaufer, and toured her workplace.
Wettlaufer, an operator who has been with the county for almost five years and was honored by the county this month, was the start of a well-oiled machine, Borzillo said. Their proximity to the firehouse and Paoli Hospital helped get him professional care quickly.
“If the Eagles offense executed that efficiently, we would have been in the Super Bowl,” he said.
Terri Borzillosaid meeting Wetlauferhelped ease the trauma of the situation.
“She’s beautiful. And what they do there is amazing, and they get all of the credit,” she said.
Saturday marks three months since Bob Borzillo’s cardiac arrest. He and his wife are in Florida while he recovers, and will celebrate Valentine’s Day with friends from Chester County.
“Certainly the heart and what Valentine represents has a special meaning this year, and I am blessed to be here to celebrate it,” he said in an email.
This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.
But inthe Philadelphia region, only 26% of people suffering cardiac arrest receive bystander intervention, saidJeffrey Salvatore, the vice president of community impact for the American Heart Association of Greater Philadelphia. That’s much lower than the national average of40%.
Though often used interchangeably, a heart attack and a cardiac arrest are not the same, and they warrant (slightly) different responses.
A heart attack is a “plumbing issue,” where there’s some blockage in the arteries that supply blood to the heart, Salvatore said.
But a cardiac arrest is an “electrical problem;” the heart pumps through an electrical system, and when something misfires or stops, that’s when a cardiac arrest occurs. It necessitates CPR.
“When the heart stops doing its job, we have to take over, and that’s when CPR comes into play,” he said.
Someone in cardiac arrest is unresponsive, and requires immediate intervention to prevent death.
You can check for unresponsiveness by tapping someone on the shoulder, rubbing their chest, or yelling loudly. If they don’t respond, call 911, and begin hands-only CPR, pressing hard and fast in the center of the chest.
In many cases,911 operators have been trained to walk callers through delivering CPR.
A heart attack can lead to cardiac arrest, but it can also happen separately, and never result in the heart stopping, Salvatore said.
If someone is exhibiting signs of a heart attack — chest discomfort; or discomfort in other areas of the upper body, such as arms, back, neck, jaw and stomach; shortness of breath; cold sweats; light-headedness; rapid or irregular heartbeat — call 911, Salvatore said.
The American Heart Association is seeking to expand training in hands-only CPR for adults and teens, to increase low bystander-intervention rates.
Just doing chest compressions — no mouth-to-mouth contact required — and calling 911 can double someone’s chance of survival, Salvatore said.
“They are the first responder before EMS gets to the scene,” he said.
For more information, or to get CPR certified, you can go to cpr.heart.org
Quakertown Community School District Superintendent Matthew Friedman is on leave effective immediately, a district spokesperson said Friday.
The spokesperson, Melissa Hartney, said the district’s school board could not comment further.
“Because this is a personnel matter, the board is limited in the amount of information it can share at this time,” Hartney said in a statement.
Friedman did not return a request for comment.
Friedman took over the 4,600-student district in Upper Bucks County in 2023, after serving as superintendent of the Ocean City School District in New Jersey.
The Quakertown school board in November granted him a $10,000 raise, bringing his salary to $233,000, and extended his contract until June 30, 2028.
Assistant Superintendent Lisa Hoffman is taking over day-to-day operations of the district, Hartney said.
“The board is confident that district operations, instructional programs, and student services will continue without interruption,” Hartney said, adding that it “remains committed to transparency, accountability, and maintaining the trust of our students, staff, families, and community.”
Phil Sumpter, 95, formerly of Philadelphia, celebrated sculptor, artist, art teacher, TV station art director, veteran, mentor, urban cowboy, and revered raconteur, died Thursday, Jan. 1, of age-associated decline at his home in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
A graduate of John Bartram High School and the old Philadelphia College of Art, Mr. Sumpter taught art, both its history and application, to middle and high school students in Philadelphia for 27 years. He was an engaging teacher, former students said, and a founding faculty member at the Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts in 1978.
He started teaching in 1955 and, after a break in the 1960s and ’70s, finally retired in 1992. “You are very lucky to have a teacher in your life that believed in you, nurtured you, challenged you, and loved you,” a former student said on Facebook. “Mr. Sumpter did all that and more.”
Other former students called him their “father” and a “legend.” One said: “You did a lot of good here on earth, especially for a bunch of feral artist teenagers.”
Mr. Sumpter (left) talks about his sculpture of Underground Railroad organizer William Still in 2003.
Outside the classroom, Mr. Sumpter sculpted hundreds of pieces and painted and sketched thousands of pictures in his South Philadelphia stable-turned-studio on Hicks Street. Prominent examples of his dozens of commissions and wide-ranging public art presence include the bas-relief sculpture of Black Revolutionary War soldiers at Valley Forge National Historical Park in Montgomery County, the action statue of baseball star Roberto Clemente in North Philadelphia, the Negro Leagues baseball monument in West Parkside, and the Judy Johnson and Helen Chambers statues in Wilmington.
He worked often in clay and paper, made murals, and designed commemorative coins and medals. He especially enjoyed illustrating cowboys, pirates, Puerto Rican jibaros, and landscapes.
His statue of Clemente was unveiled at Roberto Clemente Middle School in 1997, and Mr. Sumpter told The Inquirer: “I think I’ve captured a heroic image, an action figure depicting strength plus determination.”
He was among the most popular contributors to the Off the Wall Gallery at Dirty Franks bar, and his many exhibitions drew crowds and parties at the Bacchanal Gallery, the Free Library of Philadelphia, the Plastic Club, and elsewhere in the region and Puerto Rico. He hung out with other notable artists and community leaders, and collaborated on projects with his son, Philip III, and daughter, Elisabeth.
Mr. Sumpter worked often in clay and paper, made murals, and designed commemorative coins and medals.
He even marketed a homemade barbecue sauce with his wife, Carmen. His family said: “He is remembered for mentorship, cultural fluency, and presence as much as for material works.”
He founded Phil Sumpter Design Associates in the 1960s and worked on design and branding projects for a decade with institutions, educational organizations, and other clients. He was art director for WKBS-TV, WPHL-TV, and the Pyramid Club.
“The word for him,” his son said, “is expansive.”
Mr. Sumpter was friendly and gregarious. He became enamored with Black cowboys and Western life as a boy and went on to ride horses around town, dress daily in Western wear, and depict Black cowboys from around the world in his art. His viewpoints and exhibits were featured often in The Inquirer, the Philadelphia Tribune, Philadelphia Magazine, Dosage Magazine, and other publications.
Mr. Sumpter (in white cowboy hat) views his statue of Roberto Clemente in 1997.
He was an air observer for the Air Force during the Korean War and later, while stationed in England, studied sculpture, ceramics, and drawing at Cambridge Technical Institute. His daughter said: “He taught me how to open the portal to the infinite multiverse of my own imagination, where every mind, every soul can be free.”
Philip Harold Sumpter Jr. was born March 12, 1930, in Erie. His family moved to segregated West Philadelphia when he was young, and he earned a bachelor’s degree in art education at PCA.
He married and divorced when he was young, and then married Florence Reasner. They had a son, Philip III, and a daughter, Elisabeth, and lived in Abington. They divorced later, and he moved to Hicks Street in South Philadelphia.
He met Carmen Guzman in Philadelphia, and they married in 2001 and moved to San Juan for good in 2003. He built a studio at his new home and never really retired from creating.
Mr. Sumpter (second from left) enjoyed time with his family.
Mr. Sumpter enjoyed singing, road trips to visit family in Pittsburgh, and bomba dancing in San Juan. He was a creative cook, and what he called his “trail chili” won cook-offs and many admirers.
“He was a larger-than-life person,” his son said. “He was fearless in his frontier spirit.” His wife said: “His joy for life was contagious, as was his laughter.”
In addition to his wife, children, and former wife, Mr. Sumpter is survived by other relatives.
A celebration of his life was held earlier in Puerto Rico. Celebrations in Philadelphia are to be from 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday, March 14, at Dirty Franks, 347 S. 13th St., Philadelphia,Pa. 19107, and from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. Sunday, March 15, at the Plastic Club, 247 S. Camac St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19107.
Mr. Sumpter’s work was featured in The Inquirer in 1994.
The Abington School District has placed Abington Senior High School Principal Alice Swift on administrative leave amid an investigation into social media posts.
“I am writing to inform you that, effective Feb. 12, 2026, Dr. Alice Swift has been placed on administrative leave,” Superintendent Jeffrey Fecher wrote in a message to parents Thursday. “The district received allegations of inappropriate social media posts and is investigating the matter.”
It was not immediately clear what Swift had posted on social media that led to the district’s action. Attempts to reach Swift for comment Friday were unsuccessful.
Fecher declined to comment further Friday, calling the issue a personnel matter. He said support was in place at the high school to ensure stability for students.
Swift, a 1983 Abington graduate and former teacher and administrator in Maryland schools, became principal of Abington Senior High School in 2024.
Fecher said the district “will share additional updates regarding Dr. Swift’s return as more information becomes available.”
Sitting onstage in an echoeyhistoric synagogue, next to a U.S. senatorand a cardboard cutout of his newly released memoir, Gov. Josh Shapiro reflected on the Pennsylvanians who give him hope.
As he had in other stops on his book tour up and down the East Coast, Shapirooften referred to his book’s title, Where We Keep The Light, and the ways he finds hope in the “extraordinary impact” of Pennsylvanians. Among them, he said, were those who were sexually abused by Catholic priests in crimes covered up by the church until they were illuminated by the victims’ unrelenting quest for justice.
“I find hope in the people I met who were abused over years and years and years,” Shapiro told U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D., Ga.) last month at an event at Sixth and I, a synagogue in Washington, “who still had the courage to show up in a grand jury room to testify and to challenge me to do something to make sure we righted a wrong and brought justice to them.”
The nearly 900-page report was lauded as the most comprehensive review of clergy abuse across a single state and prompted new laws clarifying penalties for failure to report abuse and allowing survivors more time to pursue criminal or civil cases against their abusers.
But a key step in delivering justice to those survivors — establishing a two-year window for the filing of lawsuits over decades-old abuse that falls outside the statute of limitations under existing law — remains unfinished.
The proposal has become one of the most fraught issues in Harrisburg. After a devastating clerical error by Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration killed a proposed constitutional amendment in 2021, lawmakers have been unable to come together on a new path forward. Republicans who control the state Senate have tied the proposal to policies Democrats will not support. All the while, the Catholic Church and the insurance industry have lobbied hard against it.
Nearly a dozen interviews with survivors, their family members, and advocates reveal a deep frustration with the inaction in Harrisburg. Even as Shapiro renews calls for the Senate to act, survivors are divided over whether he has done enough to use his power as governor to advocate for them.
A key pledge in Shapiro’s bid for reelection — and his pitch to a national audience — is that he can “get stuff done” by working across the aisle. But some abuse survivors in Pennsylvania say the unfinished business in getting justice for them brings that record into question.
“He got to where he’s at on the back of victims and survivors, and now he’s forgotten,” said Mike McIlmail, the father of a clergy abuse victim, Sean McIlmail, who died of an overdose shortly before he was supposed to testify in a criminal case against his alleged abuser.
Shapiro, his spokesperson Will Simons said, has fought for survivors “publicly and in legislative negotiations” since 2018. He has promised to sign any bill that reaches his desk establishing the window.
With a reelection campaignunderway and his eyes on flipping the state Senate, the governor renewed that fight earlier this month. He used his budget address to blame Senate Republicans for the inaction thus far.
“Stop cowering to the special interests, like insurance companies and lobbyists for the Catholic Church,” he said, his voice thundering in the House chamber. “Stop tying justice for abused kids to your pet political projects. And start listening to victims.”
Mike and Debbie McIlmail, parents of Sean McIlmail, in the office of (left) Marci Hamilton, in Philadelphia on March 29, 2022.
For most of the casesin the report, the statute of limitations had passed, leaving no legal recourse for survivors.
The report proposed that lawmakers create a two-year window to allow the filing of civil suits over cases that happened years, if not decades, ago. Despite Shapiro’s advocacy since releasing the grand jury report, the proposal has been trapped in a stalemate for years.
Pennsylvania trails more than 30 other states that have approved similar legislation.
Then-Attorney General Josh Shapiro speaks at a news conference in the state Capitol in 2018 about legislation to respond to a landmark grand jury report accusing hundreds of priests of sexually abusing children over decades stalled in the legislature.
“It’s maddening to have people say, ‘We’re committed to this, this is going to happen, we’re committed to it,’ from both sides of the political spectrum and nothing ever gets done,” said Jay Sefton, who says he was abused by a priest in Havertown as a middle schooler in the 1980s. “It does start to feel like these are lives being used as its own sort of theater.”
Gov. Josh Shapiro makes his annual budget proposal in the state House chamber Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026.
Speaking to journalists in Washington days before he targeted Republicans in his budget address, Shapiro tied the window’s prospects to Democrats’ ability to win the state Senate for the first time in more than three decades.
“I’m confident with a Democratic Senate that will be one of the first bills they put on my desk,” Shapiro said.
Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward, a Republican, leaves the House chamber following Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s annual budget proposal speech in Harrisburg on Feb. 3.
In an interview, Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward (R., Westmoreland) noted that the GOP-controlled Senate had approved a constitutional amendment to establish the window several times before, although it ultimately failed to ever reach the voters.
She declined to say whether the state Senate would take up the amendment up this year but said creating the window through legislation, as Shapiro requested, would be unconstitutional.
“He has decided that he’s going to be moral instead of follow the law. Look at his record in his own office,” Ward said, arguing Shapiro has a track record of fighting for some survivors but not others. She pointed to his office’s handling of sexual harassment allegations brought against a former top staffer and close ally. Documents showed that complaints about the staffer were made months before his abrupt resignation.
For some clergy abuse survivors, the blame lands squarely on Ward and her Republican allies as they insist on a constitutional amendment, which requires two votes by both the House and Senate along with a ballot measure.
“It’s the Republicans that are blocking it, and I think they’re blocking it because of the church,” said Julianne Bortz, a survivor who testified before the grand jury and whose experience was featured in the report.
A portrait of former Pa. House Speaker Mark Rozzi hangs alongside painting of other former speakers in hallway at the state Capitol.
Debate among survivors
Despite Shapiro’s recent statements, there is a sense among some survivors that lawmakers, and Shapiro, have forgotten about them.
Former state House Speaker Mark Rozzi, a Berks County Democrat and clergy abuse survivor, said Shapiro “betrayed” survivors and should be playing “hardball” with the Senate to ensure that the bill makes it to his desk.
“Talk is cheap. Unless you come to the table and cut a deal, nothing else gets done,” Rozzi said.
Then-Pennsylvania House Speaker Mark Rozzi, center right, embraces Arthur Baselice, the father of Arthur Baselice III, after he testified at a hearing in Philadelphia on Jan. 27, 2023.
Advocates have spent years pushing lawmakers in Harrisburg and have grown increasingly frustrated with the lack of movement.
“We, being the victims, have always held our end of the bargain. Always. We’ve always shown up when we’ve asked to, we’ve testified when we were asked to, we interviewed, we discussed the worst moments of our lives when asked,” said Shaun Dougherty, who said he was abused by an Altoona-Johnstown priest.
Now, he said, it’s the governor’s turn to get the work done.
Former State Rep. Bill Wachob, a Democrat who worked in politics after leaving elected office in the 1980s, is convinced the governor could make it happen through negotiations if he wanted.
“He and his team have made a calculated political decision that they have gotten as much mileage out of this issue as they’re going to get and they’re not doing anything more,” Wachob said.
In Shapiro’s memoir, however, he wrote he expected that going up against the Catholic Church in pursuing the 2018 report “was likely the end of the road for me politically.”
“I’d made my peace with being a one term Attorney General, if it meant that I could put my head on the pillow at night knowing I did my job and made good for these victims,” he wrote.
“I have no doubt that the governor has been doing what he can,” said Marci Hamilton, the founder of Child USA, which advocates for child sex abuse victims. She blamed the challenges in reaching a deal on Harrisburg’s partisan dynamics.
Recent criticism of Shapiro has driven division within the survivor community in recent weeks, said Mary McHale, a survivor who was featured in a 2022 Shapiro campaign ad.
“He cares. But he also has a state to run. This can’t be the No. 1 issue,” she said.
Diana Vojtasek, who said she was abused by the same Allentown priest as McHale, said she worries frustration is being misdirected at Shapiro instead of Republicans.
“I just don’t see the value in attacking the one who has vowed publicly that he will sign this legislation for us as soon as it’s across his desk,” she said.
Abuse survivor Shaun Dougherty (left) greets then-Gov. Tom Wolf in the State Capitol on Sept. 24, 2018.
“What the Epstein transparency act showed us is we are finally at a point where the protection of sexual abuse victims is nonpartisan,” Hamilton said. “I fully expect to see that that understanding for victims will happen in Harrisburg.”
Rep. Nathan Davidson, a Dauphin County Democrat who introduced the House legislation to create the window, has scheduled hearings in April to bring renewed attention to the issue.
Sefton, who said he was abused as a middle schooler in Havertown in the 1980s, will perform a one-man show about his experience in a theater just steps from the state Capitol the week of the hearings.
He is done hoping lawmakers will establish the window but said it would make the state safer if they did.
“Nobody is going to give anyone their childhood back. It can’t happen,” Sefton said.
“There’s always going to be a part of me that’s filled with some rage about people blocking the energy here. If that were to go through, it’s a piece of energy that gets finally freed up.”
Philadelphia is getting $13 million to support six traffic-safety projects in Philadelphia, courtesy of speeders caught and fined by automated enforcement cameras.
The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation announced the grants Wednesday for an array of city projects, including $2 million for traffic-calming measures on Lincoln Drive between Kelly Drive and Wayne Avenue.
Some of that money will help pay for speed humps at 100 additional public, parochial, and private schools in the city, PennDot said.
Since taking office in 2023, the Shapiro administration has invested $49.7million in city traffic-safety projects, all from revenues raised by speed cameras.
Calming speeders
Under the automated speed-enforcement program, grants are plowed back into the communities that generated the revenue. Philadelphia is so far the only municipality in the state where speed cameras are authorized.
Pennsylvania also has automated speed enforcement in highway work zones, but that revenue goes to the Pennsylvania State Police for extra patrols and more troopers, the turnpike for safety projects and speeding counter-measures, and the general treasury.
The new grant is meant to continue traffic-safety work on Lincoln Drive that began a couple of years ago.
That includes speed humps, speed slots, new phosphorescent paint, flexible lane delineators, a smoother merge point where the road narrows, and marked left-turn lanes.
“It’s made a huge difference,” said Josephine Winter, executive director of the West Mount Airy Neighbors civic group, which organized residents.
“People that live along Lincoln Drive are feeling positive,” she said — though there is a split between people who are angry at what speed bumps have done to their cars’ undercarriages and those who support what they say are life-saving improvements.
“The city was wonderful, very responsive,” Winter said. “We’re been fortunate to get something done here.” Next up: working with other Northwest residents to get improvements on side streets, Wissahickon Avenue, and others.
Other grants
$1.5 million for planning work to upgrade traffic signals, better lane and crosswalk markings, and intersection modifications.
$5 million for design and construction of safety improvements along commercial and transit corridors. Those include curb extensions, concrete medians, bus boarding bump-outs, and new crosswalks. Locations include: Frankford Avenue (Tyson Avenue to Sheffield Avenue); 52nd Street (Arch Street to Pine Street); Hunting Park Avenue (Old York Road to 15th Street); and Germantown Avenue (Indiana Avenue to Venango Street).
In December, Katrina Williams watched as the man who killed her brother was sentenced to decades in prison and felt, she said, as if a two-year nightmare was coming to an end.
But weeks later, another shooting took the life of her only son.
Williams’ brother, Lashyd Merritt, 21, was one of five people killed in a mass shooting in Kingsessing in July 2023, when Kimbrady Carriker walked through the Southwest Philadelphia neighborhood with an AR-15 rifle and fired at random passersby.
Then, in January, her 19-year-old son, Russell, was killed by a man who, like the Kingsessing shooter, committed a spree of crimes, police say.
“I’ll never understand it,” said Williams,43. “There’s no reason for it.”
A high school photograph of Russell Williams being held by his father and mother, Katrina and Russell Williams Sr. at their home in Southwest Philadelphia on Feb. 6.
For Williams, the trauma of Merritt’s violent death never fully dissipated, she said, and the fatal shooting of her son only compounds her pain.
It’s a cycle of violence that is not unfamiliar in the city.
For others with relatives killed in the Kingsessing attack, the traumatic impact of gun violence did not end on that July day. Nyshyia Thomas lost her 15-year-old son, DaJuan Brown, to the gunfire and, while she was still mourning, her 21-year-old son, Daquan Brown, was arrested last year in connection with another mass shooting in Grays Ferry.
Asked about the evening of Jan. 28, when she and her husband, Russell Williams Sr., learned of their son’s death, Williams said two things came to mind:
“Déjà vu,” she said, and “hell.”
A seemingly random crime
Around 10 p.m. near 64th Street and Lindbergh Boulevard, police said, 19-year-old Zaamir Harris stepped off a SEPTA bus and stole a bike from the vehicle.
He rode up to Russell Williams, who was walking home from night school, where the teen was studying to become a commercial truck driver. Harris then pulled a gun and fired at Williams multiple times, striking him in the throat, police said.
Williams collapsed near 66th Street and Dicks Avenue, just three blocks from home. After the shooting,Harris ditched the bike and stole an e-scooter before fleeing, according to police.
Police tracked Harris to a Wawa at 84th Street and Bartram Avenue, where he was arrested. He was charged with murder and gun crimes. Investigators recovered three fired cartridge casings from the scene, as well as a 9mm handgun, according to police.
A spokesperson for the Philadelphia Police Department declined to say whether investigators have determined a motive for the shooting, citing the ongoing investigation.
Katrina Williams said her son did not know Harris, and a police detective told her the shooting was random.
After he was shot, Russell Williams was rushed to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where he died from his injuries. It was the same hospital where Williams’ brother, Merritt, was taken after being shot in Kingsessing, she said.
Katrina Williams, whose son, Russell, 19, was shot and killed not far from family home in Southwest Philadelphia.
Russell Williams had recently graduated from Philadelphia Electrical and Technology Charter School and dreamed of an entrepreneurial career in stock trading.
Like her son, Williams said, Merritt was a hard worker who wanted to better his life. He worked for the IRS, had a girlfriend, and wanted to travel the world, she said.
“We lost two great people,” Williams said. “Two of them.”
That police made an arrest in the slaying of their son has brought little solace, Williams and her husband said as they sat in their Southwest Philadelphia living room on a recentFebruary day. Family photos filled the space, and a portrait of Russell, smiling and wearing a tuxedo, hung on the wall.
As the case against her son’s accused killer proceeds, Williams said, she will be in court every step of the way, just as she was when Carriker pleaded guiltyin the death of her brother.
In December, as Carriker faced sentencing, Williams said, she could not bring herself to address the judge and ask for a long prison sentence, as relatives of other victims did. She was so overcome with anger, she said, that she feared she might physically attack her brother’s killer.
But she was in the room when Common Pleas Court Judge Glenn B. Bronson sentenced him to 37½ to 75 years in prison. In Williams’ view, Carriker should have received a life sentence for each person he killed, she said, even if no punishment could make up for the loss of Merritt.
Now, Williams is preparing to head back to court as she once again seeks justice.
Since her son’s death, Williams said, she has taken comfort in the kindness of friends and family. She was touched, she said, to see a “block full of people” gather to honor his life and release balloons in his memory. But the ache of her loss remains.
“It’s like pain on top of pain — it’s just always gonna be hard,“ Williams said. ”I just gotta deal with it the best way I can.”
