On July 18, more than 250 Venezuelan immigrants held since March in a Salvadoran prison at the behest of the Trump administration were released in a prisoner swap for 10 U.S. citizens and permanent residents jailed by the Venezuelan government.
For the men and their families, it could not have been a more joyous moment. It had been months since they last heard from their loved ones, not knowing if they were alive or dead.
For the respective governments involved, it was also a time to crow.
Even self-described “world’s coolest dictator” (and apparently America’s next top jailer), Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, got a little self-love in, boasting on X of the “months of negotiations with a tyrannical regime” that El Salvador had engaged in to help get the Americans home.
Well, bully for authoritarianism.
For the rest of us — for those who believe in the rule of law and still hold out hope for the American Experiment — July 18 may be remembered as a dark day.
Unless the administration is held accountable for the blatantly illegal way it upended these immigrants’ lives, the episode will mark a new low in America’s slide toward illiberal democracy under President Trump.
As prisoners stand looking out from a cell, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks during a tour of the Terrorist Confinement Center in Tecoluca, El Salvador, in March.
Undue process
To be sure, the release of all these men is good news. Most of the freed Americans were wrongfully detained and accused of being involved in plots to destabilize Venezuela.
Their arrests were part of a transparent, cynical ploy by the Maduro regime to use these men like bargaining chips as the country struggles to get out from under oil sanctions that have contributed to the nation’s deep economic problems.
The illegal detentions were also par for the course for a government where every branch is controlled by Maduro loyalists, and which routinely jails its own dissidents. (The swap included 80 political prisoners, but there are conflicting reports on whether they have all been released.)
There is no question that Venezuela’s actions are morally and legally indefensible. But what about America’s?
The more than 250 Venezuelans who ended up in El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT, were sent there by the Trump administration on March 15. They were deported with little or no due process under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, accused of being dangerous criminals and members of the Tren de Aragua gang, which Trump declared a terrorist organization.
But reporting by several media organizations quickly put the lie to those claims, with ProPublica finding the government’s own records show that it knew the vast majority of the men had not been convicted of any violent crime in the U.S., and only a few had committed crimes abroad.
Most of the men were also not very hard to find, as they were either never released from immigration custody while they pursued asylum claims or their cases were moving through the immigration system.
Take the four Venezuelans identified as having ties to Pennsylvania before they were sent to CECOT.
Inmates exercise under the watch of prison guards during a press tour of the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, in Tecololuca, El Salvador, Oct. 12, 2023.
Joén Manuel Suárez Fuentes, 23, was detained during a traffic stop and charged with driving without a license. Ileis Villegas Freites, 28, had been sentenced to one year of probation for retail theft in Montgomery County.
Miguel Gregorio Vaamondes Barrios, 32, had a series of shoplifting arrests, including an open theft case in Pennsylvania, and was convicted of petit larceny in Nassau County, N.Y. Luis Jean Pier Gualdrón, 22, had a pending asylum application when he was deported. He had pleaded guilty to harassment in Northampton County, Pa., and was sentenced to three to six months in jail.
While some may argue that only people of unimpeachable moral character should be welcomed in America — and having a criminal record can disqualify immigrants from being granted legal status — these men were far from the “monsters” and members of a gang who the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said “rape, maim, and murder for sport.”
And even if they had been charged with being the worst of the worst, under the Constitution, the government still has to prove its case against anyone it seeks to deprive of “life, liberty, or property.”
In deporting the Venezuelans, the administration acted recklessly and lawlessly, ignoring not only the letter of the law but also directly disregarding an order from U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, barring the government from transferring the men to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act.
That the men are now free — although it is highly likely some have been placed right back in the dangerous situations under an oppressive regime they were fleeing in the first place — does not absolve the Trump administration of wrongdoing.
Migrants deported months before by the United States to El Salvador under the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown arrive at Simon Bolívar International Airport in Maiquetia, Venezuela, July 18, 2025.
Test case
Throughout the entire ordeal, the government has placed itself above the law.
Seeking to make good on Trump’s promise of mass deportations and tall tales of criminal immigrants running rampant, administration officials engaged in the kind of abuse of power that is un-American on its face.
The government selected a group of men under suspect criteria, identifying many of them as gang members based on the discredited belief that they had identifying tattoos. It then disappeared them, sending them to a foreign prison known for its brutal conditions, where they were unable to communicate with their families or lawyers.
To this day, officials have not even released a full list of names of the people they sent to El Salvador. What is publicly available has been cobbled together from families speaking out and media reports. It is unclear if everyone deported has been accounted for.
The government consistently defied court interventions, claiming that once the men were in El Salvador, they had no direct control over what would happen to them. The prisoner swap makes this particular lie only more blatant.
Most alarming is that there is nothing stopping them from doing it again — or keeping them from doing it to whomever they want. Already, Trump has mused about sending Americans to El Salvador.
“The homegrowns are next,” he told Bukele during the Salvadoran leader’s April visit to the White House. “You gotta build about five more places. … It’s not big enough.”
Having already violated the Fifth Amendment guaranteeing due process, it’s not much of a stretch for the administration to ignore the Eighth Amendment’s protection from cruel and unusual punishment.
America cannot move on from what happened to the Venezuelan immigrants. Their plight cannot be swept away in the flood of scandals and outrages that regularly flow from the White House.
The Trump administration cannot be allowed to do this to anyone ever again.
Brady Martin answered the phone last week. Was he at the rink, keeping his legs loose before he is selected in the NHL draft on Friday? Or maybe home, relaxing after a week of interviews and physical tests at the NHL scouting combine?
Nope.
“I’m actually sitting outside an auction right now,” the projected top-10 draft pick said. Yep, Martin was selling some of his cows just days before being drafted.
During the COVID pandemic, the center didn’t have much to do. Martin, the middle son of Sheryl and Terry Martin, and his brothers invested their money in beef cows. He was selling some of his cows on this day.
“We usually buy a cow, and usually have a calf with it,” Martin explained to The Inquirer. “We raise up the baby calf, and then once it’s big enough to sell, we’ll take it to the butcher or the auction, and then someone else will buy it, or we’ll butcher it and keep it for our own meat. Depends on what the price is looking at.”
Raising cows isn’t something new to Martin. Known for his hitting and physical game on the ice, he gets his strength from his family’s dairy farm, helping to raise and maintain 250 cattle, 4,000 pigs, and 60,000 chickens. They have a lot of land — technically two farms — outside of Elmira, Ontario, near the hometown of former Flyer Darryl Sittler, and they grow wheat, corn, beans, ryegrass, and hay to feed their animals before selling the excess.
Brady Martin is planning on taking over the family farm once his hockey career is over.
When the now 18-year-old Martin was younger and not training as much, his days would start at 6 a.m. doing chores for the next 2½ hours before having breakfast. After getting his fill, he’d return to the beef barn for more chores until 10 a.m. Some of his responsibilities included feeding the cows and baby calves, making sure they had dry bedding to lie on, and ensuring the herd was healthy.
During the hockey season, he was part of a co-op and in school part-time. So, he would work most of the day, until about 5:30 p.m., before practice at 7 p.m. “That was kind of my day, and after practice, come home, watch some hockey, and then do it all over again the next day,” he said.
“I’m not working much anymore,” he added. “I’ll get up and still do the chores around 6 before anything. I’ll get up and I’ll do the chores, and then I’ll go work out and skate, and usually have that done by midafternoon. Then I have my day to go back to the barn and do whatever. … Kind of used to working hard and working a full day.”
The work ethic is there
Farming has been part of the Martin family for generations, and he plans on taking over the farm when his hockey days are over. It is this background, as a member of the Mennonite community in Canada, that has helped him build a strong work ethic akin to the blue-collar values of Philly.
And it is at No. 6 that the Flyers could snag this highly touted prospect. This past season, the centerman put up 33 goals and 72 points in 57 regular-season games for the Soo Greyhounds of the Ontario Hockey League. An alternate captain, he had a team-best eight power-play goals before adding another four points (two goals, two assists) in five playoff games. He then went to Texas and put up 11 points (three goals, eight assists) in seven games for the gold-medal winning Canadians at the U18 World Championship.
“It does not take long to find out why scouts love him so much, because he is the hardest hitter in the draft,” FloHockey NHL draft analyst Chris Peters said. “He hurts people because of how hard he hits. He’s not doing it maliciously; he’s just that devastating of a body checker. But then, he can also score, and he’s got hands, he’s got the ability.
“Does he have the offensive upside of some of these other guys that we are talking about, like [Jake] O’Brien, [James] Hagens, [Porter] Martone? Probably not, but he does have that well-rounded capability to be defensive, to make you know that he’s there. There is still a huge value placed on that competitive element of his game. He comes by it naturally, too. Grew up on a farm, raised on a farm. … There’s a work ethic to the kid. There’s a character to the kid. And on top of it, he is this fearsome player.”
Brady Martin has turned into “a wild card” in the 2025 draft, The Athletic’s NHL draft analyst Scott Wheeler says.
When asked about being called a “wrecking ball on skates” by draft analysts, Martin replied quietly and modestly with a “Yeah” and a laugh.
“I love the physical part of the game, and just a big part of my game for sure,” he said. “Yeah, to be offensively skilled and compete and work hard like that, to have that tool in my toolbox is good. To be on a hit, know when to hit, I know I enjoy it, too. So yeah, it’s a big part of my game.”
At 6 feet and 187 pounds, the pivot is “not a behemoth,” as NHL draft analyst Scott Wheeler said at the combine in Buffalo. “But he is probably pound-for-pound, one of the strongest players in this draft, and just an absolute terror.”
That’s a pretty good thing when you compare your game to NHL menaces — but also point producers — Matthew Knies, Tom Wilson, Zach Hyman, and Sam Bennett. The latter was named the Conn Smythe Trophy winner as the playoff MVP while leading the Florida Panthers to their second straight Stanley Cup over Hyman’s Edmonton Oilers, Martin’s favorite team.
Sounds like his work ethic and style would fit perfectly in Philly.
Brady Martin had 33 goals and 72 points in 57 regular-season games for the Soo Greyhounds of the Ontario Hockey League.
“Brady Martin is one of one in this class,” Wheeler said. “He is the most competitive forward in this class. He is arguably the most competitive player in this class. I would say that him and Kashawn Aitcheson are the fiercest competitors in this age group. He is the most physical forward in this class. He hits and hurts guys. He dominates guys physically in terms of just his intensity, the way that he goes after guys, and finishes his checks.
“So there’s that piece of it, which every team loves, the throwback player, and then on top of that, he’s very skilled. He’s got this sort of quick-twitch hands, and he can make plays, and he’s got an NHL shot.”
Martin met with the Flyers and was one of three players known to have had dinner with the team in Buffalo. He said they talked for a while, it was casual and, fittingly, they took him for a steak. Flyers hockey is “kind of the hockey I play, so I think it’d be a perfect fit for me,” he added.
It may be, considering the Flyers are always searching for guys who already come with a “high compete” level. It was the edict under former coach John Tortorella, and it’s fair to say Rick Tocchet leans the same way. And of course, at No. 6, the expectation is that if the Flyers take a center, he’ll be the future linemate of Matvei Michkov.
“I think it would be good,” Martin said of pairing with the Russian star winger. “I think he’s a skilled player, and he’s one of the best players this year on that team. And, yeah, it’d be cool to play with him and, if I get the opportunity, I think it could work, get him pucks, and make room on the ice for him.”
When asked what he loves the most about hockey, the kid who started skating at 3 and “wasn’t very good” when he started said it was “being part of a team” and “when you win at the end, it’s even more fun [because] you get to enjoy the moment with your peers and your teammates who you’ve played all season with.”
Brady Martin is widely considered the top hitter in this year’s draft class.
Who is Brady Martin? He’s a banger with high skill who puts the team above himself. Which is why he will not be in Los Angeles to hear his name called on Friday. He will be home in Ontario, surrounded by family and friends, as his community throws a party, too.
“I could have went to LA, but I really enjoy my family and hockey season playing in the Soo, I don’t really get to see them much,” he said. “So to be at home and experience that with them is what I’ve always wanted to do, and to have a couple of my buddies and my peers on my side, and cousins and stuff, it’ll be pretty special.”
And after celebrating? There will be chores to do in the morning.
As Donald Trump intensifies his push for mass deportations, and communities rightfully protest in defense of their immigrant members, local and state leaders must be ready to stand up and defend the rule of law — including civil rights — against a president who is increasingly bent on using authoritarian tactics.
The United States is a nation of laws, and those who are in the country illegally should understand there are consequences. But two wrongs don’t make a right, and the way the Trump administration has engaged in enforcing immigration has leaned into the kind of cruelty and brutality that is anathema to American values.
During his presidential campaign, Trump was clear that if elected, he would seek to deport the estimated 11 million people in the country without authorization. Thanks to misinformation, propaganda, and the Biden administration’s inability to pursue a coherent asylum strategy, many voters were sold on Trump’s promise of mass deportation as a viable solution to what they saw as a crisis on the border.
The U.S. has every right to control who enters the country, and detaining and deporting immigrants who commit violent offenses has near-universal support. But mass deportation is a morally bankrupt policy whose execution, even if done within the boundaries of the law, results in families and communities being torn apart, to no discernible benefit.
Protesters confront police following an immigration raid protest the night before. Mass deportations tear families and communities apart, to no discernible benefit, the Editorial Board writes.
If the president were serious about ending illegal immigration, he would begin by lobbying Congress to reform a system that is deeply broken and works only for those who seek to exploit people who are looking for a better life in the land of opportunity.
The old saw that immigrants in the country illegally should “get in line” cuts to one of the biggest misconceptions about immigration, and that is that for most people seeking to come to the U.S. legally, or to adjust their status once here, there is no line.
Immigrants toil under difficult conditions in construction, meat processing, and dairy farming. They take care of our children and our elderly, and pick the fruits and vegetables that end up on our tables. They help revitalize blighted and economically depressed commercial corridors with their small businesses. They are also easy to demonize and scapegoat whenever politicians need to find someone to blame.
There is a stunning hypocrisy in the Trump administration’s claim that it is righteously enforcing the law to protect America from immigrants, even as it engages in the kind of lawlessness that truly endangers the union. The government has clearly violated the Constitution, denying due process to immigrants it has accused of serious crimes and summarily deported to foreign prisons renowned for torture.
The president also continues to coyly ignore the courts, endorse U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents hiding their identity and acting like de facto secret police, and flirts with disaster by entangling troops trained for deadly combat in civilian law enforcement surrounding immigration protests.
Those protests are only expected to grow, yet Trump is fanning the flames, extending his dangerous dehumanizing rhetoric from immigrants to those who would defend them. During a speech at Fort Bragg in North Carolina on Tuesday, the president called protesters in Los Angeles “animals” and a “foreign enemy.”
“We will liberate Los Angeles and make it free, clean, and safe again,” he told gathered soldiers, in a deeply troubling display of politicizing the military.
Philadelphia has already been targeted by the administration as a “sanctuary city,” and ICE tactical teams are reportedly on their way. What happens if Trump decides the city also needs to be “liberated”?
While we must all continue to demand thatthe courts and Congress hold the president accountable for any abuses, elected officials must do all they can within the law to protect all Philadelphians — including immigrants.
A government that is allowed to run roughshod over the rights of some will not hesitate to trample the rights of all.
LOS ANGELES — Inside a North Hollywood police precinct late on March 9, 1977, before the cops began questioning her about her father, Carol Steindler noticed a young woman sitting outside an office. The word HOMICIDE was stripped across the room’s pebbled-glass door, but Steindler didn’t think anything of it, didn’t see the straight line linking those three things: the word and the woman and her father. How could she see it? She didn’t know yet that he was dead.
What she did know was that Howie Steindler, 72, the owner of the Main Street Gym and a respected boxing manager, had not come home that night. Her mother, Ann, had telephoned her in a panic. Your daddy still isn’t here. Howie often stopped at his favorite bar, the Redwood, after a long day of work, but something this time made Ann “insanely upset,” Carol said recently, “more upset than usual.” Ann was so unsettled that she also called boxing promoter Don Fraser, Howie’s best friend. Fraser in turn called the police, who told him to get himself and at least one member of the Steindler family to the precinct.
The nature and timing of Howie’s disappearance were strange. Over the previous month, Ann, who tended toward the eccentric, had become convinced that something terrible was going to happen to her husband, telling Carol and others, My Howie’s gonna die. My Howie’s gonna die. Carol had stopped by her parents’ condominium in Encino, Calif., one day in February to find Howie, who had always handled the couple’s finances, teaching Ann how to write checks. “Are you sick?” Carol asked him, fearing that her father might be suffering from a fatal disease. No, he replied. It was just time for Ann to learn.
Those puzzling incidents were piling up while Steindler was approaching what promised to be the apex of his career in boxing. Looming over LA’s skid row neighborhood, the Main Street Gym was an institution, and Steindler was a popular member of the sport’s community, 5-foot-6 and slim but tough, hot-tempered yet softhearted, with few apparent enemies if any at all. He was so well regarded, in fact, that when the cast and crew of a low-budget movie — about an underdog Philadelphia fighter who gets an improbable shot at the heavyweight title — decided to use the gym as a location to shoot several scenes, one of the film’s stars had sought him out.
For two weeks in 1975, Burgess Meredith had shadowed Steindler, observing how he spoke to fighters and ran the gym, soliciting insights and advice from him, so he could better portray Mickey Goldmill, the wise and grouchy trainer who prepares Rocky Balboa to go the distance against Apollo Creed in Rocky. The Academy Awards would be held on March 28, 1977, and among the film’s 10 nominations was Meredith’s, for best actor in a supporting role. If he won, the chances were good that Meredith, in front of millions of viewers on ABC, would thank Steindler in his acceptance speech.
That moment of worldwide recognition for Steindler would never materialize, and not merely because Jason Robards, for playing Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee in All the President’s Men, won the best supporting actor Oscar that year and Meredith did not. Instead, Howie Steindler’s name would be left, for those who remember it, cloaked in sadness and mystery. Fraser picked up Carol and drove to the police station. The two of them sat together, waiting for an answer about his whereabouts, as the clock ticked toward midnight.
Sylvester Stallone on location while filming the original “Rocky” in Philadelphia.
A troubled heart of gold
Sylvester Stallone was anonymous in Hollywood, with just $106 to his name, before writing the script for Rocky and insisting, at the risk of scuttling the entire project, that he play the titular character. Rocky’s true star, the biggest name in the movie at the time, was Meredith.
He had earned an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor the previous year for his performance as a salesman/ex-vaudevillian in The Day of the Locust, and his lengthy career as a stage and screen actor, coupled with his deserved reputation as a ladies’ man, had made him a frequent source of copy in newspaper entertainment sections and gossip pages. (“Showgirl is 4th Wife of Burgess Meredith” was the headline of a brief United Press International story in January 1951.)
He was one of 41 actors who either auditioned or was considered for the role of Mickey; Lee J. Cobb, Art Carney, and George Burns were among the others. When producer Bob Chartoff approached him about the part, though, Meredith was skeptical.
“Chartoff came to Dad’s house,” Meredith’s son Jonathan said. “‘Look, we’re making a film about a boxer with Sylvester Stallone, and we’d like you to be in it. We think it’s really going to be a great film, so what we’d like to do is give you a piece of the production and then pay you less.’ And Dad says, ‘Well, I don’t know. I’d rather have the money because no one’s gonna watch a film about a boxer.’ And then, of course, it became a hit.”
Meredith accepted the role for a salary of $20,000, and the Main Street Gym was an obvious choice for Stallone, Chartoff, coproducer Irwin Winkler, and director John Avildsen as an essential location for Rocky, its grimy interior and creaky floors lending Stallone’s training scenes with Meredith an atmosphere fit for any Philly neighborhood.
The gym, on the second floor of an old concrete theater, hovered above a parking garage at the intersection of Third and Main Streets. Its entrance adorned with a sign that read “World Rated Boxers Train Here Daily,” it shared the building with a luggage store. Jim Murray, the renowned Los Angeles Times sports columnist, described the gym’s setting as “losers’ turf, the crossroads of hopelessness and despair, the home base of a lot of guys who have quit in their corners of life.”
It was the perfect place for the hardest men on earth to harden themselves. Rocky Marciano, Muhammad Ali (when his name was Cassius Clay), Jack Dempsey, Floyd Patterson, Joe Louis, George Foreman: All of them and more trained there. Steindler himself managed Danny Lopez to the World Boxing Council featherweight championship in November 1976 — the same month that Rocky premiered. Lopez’s title fight was held in Ghana, and Steindler, sick at the time, couldn’t accompany him on the trip.
Still, he was so proud of his contribution to Lopez’s championship that he invited several friends and reporters to the Redwood one night, then had them listen to a recording of the radio broadcast of the bout. He’d sip a bottle of brandy immediately after Lopez’s fights to calm his nerves, and having taken over the gym in 1960, he kept a ledger, on a yellow notepad, of all the money he had loaned to fighters — two dollars here, three dollars there, 10 dollars sometimes — and never collected.
“Even with the gruff exterior,” Carol said recently, “he had a heart of gold.”
Jimmy Gambina, who played Mike, Mickey’s assistant, and whose father, Ralph, was an accomplished manager, spent weeks teaching, or trying to teach, Stallone proper boxing technique for the film. “I got him in condition to be a tough guy,” Gambina said, “not a good boxer, just a banger, a Joe Frazier type who weighed less.” Steindler served a different function, simply by being himself. He was Meredith’s model.
Jimmy Gambina, who played Mike, Mickey’s assistant in “Rocky.”
The first time he met Steindler, at the gym, Meredith was dressed in what he called his “broken-down outfit” to play Mickey: ratty sweatshirt, pilled cardigan, cotton balls stuffed in his cheeks, makeup cauliflowering his ears, 17 fake stitches zigzagging near his eyes. He asked Steindler if he could use the phone. The costume fooled Steindler, who told him, You think I’m running a hotel here? There’s a phone down on the street. I got other things to do.
“He thought I was one of the bums, and he gave it to me,” Meredith once told the Los Angeles Times. “Later, when I went out, one of the rather slow-minded pugs around there must’ve got to his ear and said, ‘That’s one of the stars of this thing.’”
Meredith wasn’t much of a boxing fan. Loving the sport required a “love of the brutal,” he once said, that he didn’t possess. But Steindler “gave me the mind of the man,” meaning Mickey. “I’d stay around that office and listen to him crack. He’s quite a fella.”
Rudy Tellez, who apprenticed under Steindler before becoming a longtime trainer and manager himself, said that Meredith and Steindler would sit down for long conversations, and Meredith would watch Steindler’s facial expressions intently: “That’s where he picked up all that dialogue and persona.”
There’s no public record of Steindler ever saying, Women weaken legs or You’re gonna eat lightning, and you’re gonna crap thunder, as Mickey did. But it wouldn’t have been out of character if he had. “He used to call me ‘schmuck’ or ‘putz’ or all other kinds of crazy Jewish names,” Tellez said. “He meant it with love, though.” He kept a wad of cash, as much as $400, on him at all times because he didn’t trust banks. He wore a special 14-karat-gold diamond ring and drove a gold ’76 Cadillac. His office was barely big enough to store a couple of brooms, and he decorated it with photos of chimpanzees with people’s names under them. He refused to list the gym’s phone number because he didn’t want to be bothered with “too many annoying calls.”
Homeless men, their bottles of wine and beer wrapped in paper bags, sometimes slipped inside the foyer and staggered up the staircase, following the aromas of fresh sweat, dried blood, and liniment. On those occasions, Steindler might grab the billy club that hung on one of the walls.
“I run this place, y’see,” he told an LA writer in February 1976; by then, his health deteriorating, he was carrying an oxygen tank with him. “I pay the rent, and this is the most famous gym in the world. Y’might hear remarks that this is a dingy neighborhood, but no gym in the world has a tenth the traffic or a hundredth of the number of fighters.
“Sure, we got troubles sometimes, but it’s nothing. Everybody’s being hit by the same trouble. We got characters floating around — the screwballs find their way up here — but I run a strict place. This is one establishment that stays the way it was established.”
Some of those characters were more dangerous, and some of the potential troubles more serious, than Steindler implied. Crime boss Mickey Cohen, who as a teen had trained at Main Street and fancied himself a budding featherweight contender, was a presence in the LA boxing scene until his death, from complications from stomach cancer surgery, in July 1976. Fraser tried to keep Cohen and the rest of his kind at a distance, according to his daughter Denise.
“Dad would say, ‘Don’t ever have the mob do anything for you because you’ll owe them for the rest of your life,’” she said. But boxing has always been seamy, stained with corruption. There’s no cleaning it. There never has been. All you do is live with it, if you can.
“Ex-gangsters, Mafia, I met a few,” Tellez said. “They’d come up and see Howie.”
Howie Steindler (right), who was Burgess Meredith’s model for the character Mickey in the movie “Rocky,” had a close friendship with promoter Don Fraser.
A critical error
The day of Steindler’s death began in its ordinary way: the click of a key into a lock, the clomping of feet up steps. Tellez had been worried about Steindler for a while, had heard him arguing on the phone frequently. The previous afternoon, in fact, Steindler had called a state senator to talk about problems he was having with the state athletic commission. He had another loud, anxious phone conversation that morning; with whom, Tellez didn’t know. When Steindler hung up the phone, Tellez asked him, Are you OK?
Yeah, schmuck, he mumbled. I’m all right.
Tellez wouldn’t let Steindler lock up the gym alone. They left together that night. He never saw his mentor again.
At the precinct, Carol thought perhaps her father had gotten into an argument or fight with another motorist, a road-rage-style incident, or maybe he had been arrested on DUI charges. The word murder didn’t cross her mind until the police separated her and Fraser and brought her into an office to question her.
“When I got in the room there,” she said, “you would have thought I killed my father. They treated you like that. ‘What time do you get home? What time did your husband get home? Where were you?’ And yet, they haven’t told me anything about my father. Finally, I said to the guy, ‘You’d better’ — and I used some not-so-nice words — ‘tell me what’s going on or I’m not telling you another thing.’”
So they told her: A highway patrol officer had come across Howie’s Cadillac on the shoulder of Ventura Freeway, five miles from the Steindlers’ house. His body was in the backseat, his feet dangling out an open door. He had sustained a horrible beating. Three of his ribs and a vertebra were broken. He had bruises on his head, chest, and right leg and a puncture wound to his right temple. Fraser identified the body to spare Carol the sight. The official cause of death was “suffocation by apparent smothering”; the police speculated that the killers had pushed Steindler’s face into the car-seat cushion.
His wallet, his keys, his identification papers, and his gold diamond ring were missing. There was a dent on the back of Steindler’s car and a hole slicing through the bumper, indications that someone had rear-ended him.
A witness had told police that two men had attacked Steindler as he stood near his Cadillac a block from his home, punching him before shoving him in the back of the car and driving away. At first, the observer had thought the victim was female, because Steindler was so small and slight. The witness drove past the scene once, then again, then left when one of the assailants started to approach her, but she described the men’s car as being older and gray.
The young woman. Carol now understood why the young woman had been sitting near the HOMICIDE door. She was the witness. And she had made one critical mistake: Instead of noticing the license plate of the old, gray car, she remembered the license plate of Steindler’s: HOWIE-5.
Carol Steindler, with former lightweight champion Sean O’Grady, has maintained a close connection to the National Boxing Hall of Fame, which gives out an award in her father’s honor.
‘You never know’
From that beginning, a lack of evidence — and competing theories of the crime — made the case difficult to solve. Marv Engquist, the detective who led the investigation, believed that Steindler had been a random victim, that the killers had collided with his Cadillac to draw him into a confrontation and rob him. The MO fit other unsolved murders in the same vicinity and time frame, and Steindler’s feistiness, his refusal to back down from anyone, could have escalated a robbery into something more deadly.
Carol has long been skeptical of that theory. “The police, the homicide detectives, all thought it was a bump-and-run,” she said, “and I kept saying, ‘No, it’s something else. My father and mother were acting really strange for two weeks.’ I don’t think it’s just a bump-and-run. I think they knew something.”
Gambina and Tellez still believe that the mob was responsible for Steindler’s murder. They raised and discussed that possibility in hushed tones and with measured words. “The fight game,” Gambina said. “You never know what’s going to happen with people.”
Carol took over the Main Street Gym and ran it until 1984, when it was razed to build a parking lot. She and her sister, Bobbi Beatty, would from time to time speak to a newspaper or TV reporter, usually on the anniversary of their father’s death, to reawaken interest in and awareness of the case. But the odds that it will be solved are less than slim. Detectives compiled suspects but never made an arrest. Carol, who lives in Thousand Oaks, Calif., is 86. Bobbi died of cancer in 2004. Those who were involved or might know what happened — even the killers themselves — have either died or aged into inertia.
“Unfortunately,” William Beatty, Bobbi’s widower, said in a phone interview, “it’s like you’re trying to find out if there are any witnesses to the Civil War.”
After 48 years, with so many questions still lingering unanswered and unanswerable, one detail remains especially haunting. Nine months after her husband’s car and body were discovered, Ann Steindler received a strange package in the mail: Howie’s wallet, Howie’s keys, Howie’s credit cards. No cash, no return address, no fingerprints.
True Rice, a Los Angeles transplant from Baltimore, walks by a site where “Rocky” was filmed, coincidentally wearing an appropriate hoodie.
What has changed and what hasn’t
Three hundred parking spots, give or take, cover the piece of land where the Main Street Gym once stood. In some ways, little has changed about the neighborhood. Weeds and tufts of grass burst up from the concrete. Walls and telephone poles are psychedelic with graffiti.
On a recent morning, a man in a red plaid shirt stretched out on a ledge near a palm bush and slept. A few feet away, another man, dressed in ratty black, crouched down, put his hands on the sides of his head, and began screaming. A pair of white sneakers dangled from a wire stretched above, giving the lot a Philadelphian flavor. Around the corner, a dog had dropped something in the middle of the sidewalk that its owner, if the animal even had an owner, hadn’t bothered to scoop up.
There was no historical marker commemorating the gym. No artwork invoking Rocky, Stallone, or Meredith. No acknowledgment of one of the most inspirational films ever made … or the dark story connected to it.
Then, as if by magic, there was something. There was someone. True Rice strolled through the lot, heading back to his apartment after grocery shopping. Twenty-nine and a native of West Baltimore, he moved to Los Angeles in 2020 to try to make it in modeling and music.
“Came out here with 60 dollars in my pocket,” he said, “looking for a change.”
The striking aspect about him wasn’t what he did but what he wore: a white, hooded sweatshirt that he had bought the day before. Plastered across the back were the words “ROCKY: His whole life was a million-to-one shot” and a depiction of Stallone atop the Art Museum steps.
Did Rice have any idea about the history of where was walking and what that history represented? The lot … the gym … the men … the movie … the murder … the stories and the scenes, exhilarating and evil.
He said what anyone would have expected him to say. He said what even those few who remember Howie Steindler and his death would have to admit. He stood in the middle of a grim city block with no memory, and he said he didn’t know.
It seems Pennsylvania’s senior U.S. senator enjoys the perks of high office but is less interested in doing the actual job.
He has missed more votes than nearly every other senator in the past two years. He regularly skips committee hearings, cancels meetings, avoids the daily caucus lunches with colleagues, and rarely goes on the Senate floor.
Fetterman, a first-term Democrat, is also following the path of Republican elected officials by not holding town halls with constituents for fear of being heckled.
Fetterman dismissed the report as a single-source “hit piece.” But several media outlets confirmed Fetterman’s erratic behavior through multiple sources, including The Inquirer.
In one instance, Fetterman lashed out at members of the teachers’ union who pressed him regarding cuts to federal education. He reportedly banged his fist on the table and yelled at the group.
Six former Fetterman staffers told Inquirer reporter Julia Terruso that Fetterman was frequently absent or spent hours alone in his office, avoiding colleagues and meetings.
“It’s pretty impossible to overstate how disengaged he is,” one recently departed staffer said.
Fetterman suffered a stroke in May 2022 while running for Senate. After winning the election, he underwent treatment for clinical depression, citing a “dark time” and struggles to get out of bed.
Fetterman bravely confronted physical and mental health challenges, but has checked out of his Senate duties at a time when all elected officials must stand up to Donald Trump’s naked authoritarianism, corruption, and incompetence.
John Prenis holds a sign at Independence Mall during Indivisible Philadelphia’s demonstration and march from Independence Mall to Sen. John Fetterman’s office at Second and Chestnut Streets on May 9.
To be sure, mental health is a serious issue and not something to ignore. If Fetterman is still struggling, then he should seek immediate help.
Instead, Fetterman complained people have “weaponized” his mental health battles against him.
Being an elected official comes with public scrutiny. If Fetterman can’t handle the attention or perform his job, then in the best interest of the country and the nearly 13 million residents of Pennsylvania he represents, he should step aside.
After all, being an elected representative is a privilege, not an entitlement. Being a U.S. senator is a serious job that requires full-time engagement.
If Fetterman wants to continue to serve, then he must take his position seriously. He showed up for his first Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee meeting of the year in May and admitted he was shamed into attending by the media.
Fetterman dismissed his skipping out on the committee work and procedural votes as a “performative” waste of time.
He said his chronic absenteeism was a product of his decision to spend more time at home with his children and his father, who suffered a recent heart attack.
“I would go visit my dad instead of a throwaway vote,” he told the New York Times.
Spending time with family is laudable, but if that is his priority, then Fetterman should get a job closer to one of the eight properties he owns in his hometown of Braddock, Pa.
Senators often work long nights in Washington. But they also have flexible schedules and enjoy plenty of time off from Washington, since there are only an average of 165 legislative days.
Many of Fetterman’s constituents would like to work half a year so they, too, could spend time with their families. Safe to say, many would do it for less than Fetterman’s salary of $174,000, which is more than double the nation’smedian household income.
Sen. John Fetterman speaks to a reporter near the Senate chamber at the U.S. Capitol in Washington in March.
That doesn’t include the $172,500 advance Fetterman received to write a book with former Inquirer reporter Buzz Bissinger, or the $34,000 tax-free pay bump senators can claim for gas, food, and lodging while on official business in Washington.
Or the generous pensions and healthcare coverage senators receive — something most Pennsylvanians do not enjoy. Or the lifetime access to the U.S. Capitol gym and Senate dining room. Or the support staff of around 60 to help each senator do their job.
Being a U.S. senator also requires a lot of travel — mainly across their home state to hear from their constituents. The late Sen. Arlen Specter routinely crisscrossed Pennsylvania, visiting all 67 counties every two years and holding 400 town hall meetings. That’s what public service looks like.
Fetterman has not had much time for Washington or Pennsylvania. But he found time to jet down to Mar-a-Lago to schmooze with Trump, who he said “was kind,” “fascinating,” and “a commonsense person.”
Fetterman has flown to Israel twice in the past year, including a recent all-expense-paid junket to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been accused of war crimes and corruption. He and his wife flew first class and stayed in five-star hotels as part of a fact-finding mission that cost $36,000 and was paid for by a New York-based nonprofit.
Fetterman finds time to regularly appear on Fox News and other TV talk shows, while also seeming preoccupied with his social media profile.
“He’s taken two all-expenses-paid trips to Israel, but can’t drive down the street and hold a town hall,” a former staffer told the Intercept.
Other senators travel overseas but also show up for work in Washington and meet with constituents in their home state. Public service is not about serving yourself.
It’s time for Fetterman to serve Pennsylvanians, or step away.
The design of the Franklin Mills mall was inspired by disaster.
“The mall was built in the fashion of a modified train wreck,” Jeffery Sneddon, the mall’s general manager, told The Inquirer in 1989, the year it opened. “There are several buildings connected at odd angles.”
Years later, the inspiration for the mall’s design underwent a little revisionist history, with publicists claiming the mall’s shape was inspired by the lightning bolts courted by Ben Franklin.
Appropriate, as change would ultimately become the story of the mall in Northeast Philadelphia.
At the outset, the goal of the design was to break up the long stretches of the single-level space.
Shoppers at Franklin Mills walk through the mall in 1997.
The result was a mile of winding concourse lined with 250 storefronts, and organized so a shopper would always have merchandise shoved into their face.
The 1.8 million-square-foot mall was built at Knights and Woodhaven Roads on the former Liberty Bell racetrack site. The build cost was $300 million, about $773 million in today’s money.
When the doors opened on May 11, 1989, to the then-world’s largest outlet mall, the shops were 70% leased, with 120 stores rented by shoe and clothing outfits, restaurants, and anchor stores like a J.C. Penney Outlet and Sears Outlet.
The title of world’s largest had previously belonged to the Potomac Mills mall, which was a prototype in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Both shopping meccas were the brainchild of Washington-based commercial real estate tycoons Herbert S. Miller and Richard L. Kramer.
The duo wanted to build destination venues withvalue stores. And they paired that with an aggressive marketing campaign that targeted tourists, as well as shoppers who lived up to 60 miles away.
And it worked. Far Northeast Philadelphia became a destination in the shopping mall era. They’d later add a movie theater, a skate park, and a Jillian’s restaurant and arcade. The mall would host autograph signings and celebrity appearances. And throughout the 1990s and early aughts, it was a popular hangout for discount shoppers and teenagers, and attracted nearly 20 million shoppers yearly.
Shoppers stroll through the Franklin Mills mall in 2014.
But by the 2010s, it started to lose its charm. It changed names multiple times, became a haven for flash mobs, and saw its share of Black Friday melees, and a fatal shooting in the food court.
The fall of the mall concept and the rise of online shopping added to its financial issues, and the building is in receivership as debt holders determine next steps, according to the Business Journal.
John Chism, manager of Granite Run Mall in Middletown Township back in ’89, didn’t see the mall’s value at the time.
“Malls are in business to sell,” he said, “not to be attractions for sightseers.”
But that was the innovation of the Franklin Mills.
The city’s new Neighborhood Wellness Court initiative has been placed on hold amid growing concern from the leadership of Philadelphia‘s courts and judges’ mounting frustration with the city officials tasked with overseeing the program.
Wellness court, which Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration launched in January as a fast-track way to arrest people in Kensington for drug-related offenses and get them into treatment, has not taken any new cases over the last three weeks, city officials said.
Supervising Municipal Court Judge Karen Simmons was nearly ready to shut the program down over frustration with the lack of coordination and communication from the Parker administration with the courts and other city agencies involved, according to sources with knowledge of conversations about the program.
Simmons was concerned that the city was treating people arrested in some neighborhoods differently from others, and that there was inconsistency in how the program was tracking its data and determining who should be eligible for treatment, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Simmons ultimately gave the city time to fix those issues, asking that officials put together a written manual and streamline the paperwork and intake procedures to ensure fairness, the sources said. The city is expected to make those adjustments so police can resume making arrests and bringing people through the program next week.
A spokesperson for the courts declined to comment and referred questions to the city.
Chief Public Safety Director Adam Geer oversees the office that runs Neighborhood Wellness Court in Kensington.
Chief Public Safety Director Adam Geer, who oversees the city office that runs wellness court, said the delays were related to “administrative protocols” that needed to be resolved but declined to provide specifics.
Geer said that he expects the program to return to normal operations next week and that the city “is fully committed to successfully implementing and sustaining the Neighborhood Wellness Court model.”
Joshu Harris, the city’s deputy director of public safety, is no longer overseeing the program‘s operations, the sources said, and Deputy Mayor Vanessa Garrett Harley is now involved.
“As with all new pilot programs of this kind, adjustments will continually be made to improve operations as time moves forward,” city spokesperson Joe Grace said Thursday.
The pause comes amid long-simmering tension between the courts and the city over how the program was launched, sources said. Leadership of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, the Defender Association of Philadelphia, and even the judges tasked with overseeing the court were largely excluded from the city’s plans for the program and how it would operate, sources said. They have felt like the Parker administration did not want their input.
That conflict spilled into open court this month. Municipal Court Judge Henry Lewandowski III, who has presided over most of the wellness court cases so far, said at a hearing in early April that certain politicians in the city think they can “just wave a wand” and fix Kensington’s long-standing drug problems.
“I care way more than they ever will. They’re fake,” he said, adding that officials are trying to build new programs just so they have something to take credit for.
“If I said what I wanted to say,” he said, “I’d have to resign.”
His frustration was clear again Thursday as he oversaw more than 100 summary offense cases, most for fare evasion amid SEPTA‘s new crackdown on turnstile jumping.
“Who knows what program they’ll start by next week,” he said. “Every Wednesday, there’s new stuff, new programs, new procedures. … I’ve never been more confused, I’ve never been more uncertain what my job is.”
Wellness court takes place every Wednesday inside a courtroom at the 24th / 25th Police District.
Wellness court is a signature part of Parker’s plan to shut down Kensington’s notorious open-air drug market and restore quality of life for neighborhood residents.
The court runs on Wednesday afternoons. First, in the morning, police conduct sweeps of the Kensington area and arrest people in addiction for offenses like sleeping on the sidewalk, gathering around an outdoor fire, or stumbling into the street. They are typically charged with summary offenses like obstructing highways.
Those arrested are then brought to the Police-Assisted Diversion program building on Lehigh Avenue, where they are evaluated by a nurse and an addiction specialist. Officials also attempt to address any outstanding arrest warrants, and connect them with a court-appointed attorney hired by the city to discuss their rights.
Finally, they are brought before a judge — Lewandowski has heard most cases so far — inside the nearby police district. They are offered the opportunity to immediately go to rehab or face a summary trial for their alleged crimes. Those who opt to go into treatment and complete the program and terms set by the city will later have their cases dismissed and expunged.
Few in the program have asked for a same-day trial. Those found guilty have so far been ordered to pay fines and court fees ranging from about $200 to $500.
Homelessness and public drug use is widespread in Kensington, the heart of the city’s open-air drug market.
Of the more than 50 people who have come before the court so far, only two had successfully completed treatment as of early April, according to data collected by The Inquirer. The vast majority brought through the program almost immediately leave treatment and do not appear at follow-up hearings, the data show.
The city has declined to share data on wellness court, including with City Council at a recent budget hearing, saying that it is too early to judge the program on numbers alone and that more time is needed to see results.
But the Parker administration said it wants to expand the court and needs more funding for it to succeed. At a recent budget hearing, Geer asked City Council for an additional $3.7 million to operate the court five days a week and hire additional staffers.
The goal, Geer said, is to build a system where people suffering on the streets can immediately be connected with treatment and resources, avoid going to jail, and get housing through the city’s new Riverview Wellness Village. Geer has said that the program will never have a 100% success rate, but that every “touch” the program has with people in addiction increases their likelihood to eventually go into treatment.
But the First Judicial District has said wellness court will not be expanding anytime soon, according to sources.
Civil rights advocates have raised constitutional concerns over the program. In a letter to the Parker administration, the Pennsylvania chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union said the program could pose a threat to drug users’ rights and questioned whether the city could force people to make consequential legal decisions while potentially under the influence of narcotics.
Pennsylvania spent a whopping $2.53 billion at Fine Wine & Good Spirits stores from July 2023 to June of last year. From pints of whiskey and boxes of wine to cans of vodka seltzers — 156 million units were sold across the state.
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Zipcode falls mostly in County, but also spans .
Raise a glass to Pa. – here’s what alcohol people loved in the state
Sales at state-run liquor stores show that was purchased more than .
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loves its
There store in your zipcode. This data is based off of those sales.
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You’re a neighborhood of brand loyalists
In , more units of were purchased here than any other brand.
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Folks in have a unique taste for
spent more money on this than the rest of the state on average.
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A bottle of white? A bottle of red?
When it comes to wine, your area prefers the based on units sold.
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Wine lovers of agree, is the best varietal
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is a –
These are the most popular liquors by units sold.
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Bottoms up to
When it comes to stiffer drinks, these are the most popular liquors sold.
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For the more refined palate, is flying off the shelves in
A sweeter option flavored with herbs or fruit, these liqueurs are most often purchased.
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That’s a wrap for , but the party doesn’t have to stop
Check out these other zip codes to see how the alcohol flows elsewhere …
Lansdale is most loyal to one Philly brand — makers of Stateside Vodka and Surfside cocktails.
Bryn Mawr, on the Main Line, loves its white wine.
See just how much State College drinks
Doylestown, staying true to its Irish roots, consumes a lot of Baileys.
Methodology
The Philadelphia Inquirer acquired a dataset from the state Liquor Control Board comprising one year of daily sales data of each product sold at each of the state-owned Fine Wine and Good Spirits. The data only include Pennsylvania, donot include beer sales, and do not include any wine or mixers sales made outside of state stores (grocery stores, etc.).
For this story, we analyzed sales data by zip code. For zip codes with no state-run liquor stores, we assigned the zip code of the nearest store. The Inquirer also categorized alcohol into four main types — wine, liquor, liqueur, and cocktails (mixed drinks) — along with subcategories of each. Our analysis includes “most unique brand”’ which was calculated as the most money spent compared to the statewide average with a minimum of 0.1% of sales in that zipcode. Across all zip-code level analysis, we only analyzed bottles over 200 ml and excluded mini-liquor bottles.
Struggling with alcohol? There are ways out. For free, anonymous help, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week:
Pennsylvania: Call 1-800-662-HELP or visit PA.gov for a live chat.
New Jersey: 1-844-732-2465
Staff Contributors
Design and Development: Garland Fordice
Data: Chris A. Williams and Lizzie Mulvey
Editing: Sam Morris and Stephen Stirling
Copy Editing: Brian Leighton
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ST. LOUIS — Skating around the Enterprise Center with his blond hair flowing out of his helmet, Flyers prospect Alex Bump potted a quick wrister from the slot as his linemate Matteo Costantini let out a big yelp.
Were they celebrating a goal like the double-overtime winner that sent Western Michigan to the NCAA regional finals? No. Was it one of his team-leading 23 tallies this season? Nope. It was instead at Western Michigan’s final practice before the university’s first-ever appearance in the Frozen Four.
While the goal came as he skated around in a white practice jersey with a black Bronco on it, it encompassed what Bump, 21, does best now, and what he will look to replicate when he suits up for the Flyers in the no-longer-distant future.
“A lot of guys are not confident in their shooting,” Flyers director of player development Riley Armstrong said. “A lot of guys don’t think they can beat a goalie, or they have to get to a certain area on the ice to be able to beat the goalie. I think Alex is a very confident shooter, he knows where to shoot the puck. He’s always known how to find the net.”
Flyers prospect Alex Bump is tied for eighth in the nation with 23 goals this season.
Hometown hero
Joe Pankratz remembers Bump being at the rink, even before he starred for him at Prior Lake High School. Bump’s two older brothers played hockey for the school’s longtime coach, and a young Bump — who at the age of 8 and 9, “was a good squirt”— developed a reputation as a rink rat.
“The biggest thing is, he absolutely loves hockey,” Pankratz told The Inquirer. “You can’t get him off the ice.”
It was in his hometown of Prior Lake, Minn., where Bump developed that lethal shot of his. He scored 48 goals during his senior season as the Lakers’ captain, including 12 in the section and state tournament playoffs; five came in one playoff game.
“It’s a lot of snapshots, and he protects it and hides it really well. He changes the angle on his shot. … A lot of that is he’s got amazing hands, but he has a lot of poise with the puck, so he isn’t in a rush,” Pankratz said. “He doesn’t panic with it.”
And he is a volume shooter. This season, the left-shot winger has fired 236 shots on goal with 23 goals, a 9.7% shooting percentage.
But it’s not just his shot that’s impressed the Flyers.
“He’s very elusive of checks. He’s slippery, as you would call it in hockey,” Armstrong said. “He always finds a way to get around guys, get through guys, and then when he doesn’t have the puck, he always finds a way to get open. He has a really good stick. He’s physical. He engages with and without the puck into contact, which is something that you need to play at the NHL level.”
Alex Bump’s skill has popped at multiple Flyers development camps. Next year, he hopes to crack the NHL out of main training camp.
The NHL could come as soon as the Broncos’ season ends, either Thursday against the University of Denver (5 p.m., ESPN2) or after Saturday’s national championship game (7:30 p.m., ESPN2). And it sounds like Bump will be coming with an ax to grind.
“Our guys, Brent [Flahr, assistant general manager] and [amateur scout] Shane Fukushima in Minnesota, had seen him play a lot [in high school], and they were very comfortable with him. They couldn’t believe that he had fallen this far,” Flyers general manager Danny Brière said this week.
At the time, Brière was an adviser to then-GM Chuck Fletcher. He jokes that his nephew Zaac, the team’s runner at the Montreal draft, “still claims he made the pick for us” after seeing Bump’s name high on the team’s draft board and saying they should take the Minnesotan.
Bump was eventually selected by the Flyers in the fifth round with pick No. 133 — and it lit a fire.
“He came up to the suite after. He had his brothers there, his family, and he came in and he was [ticked] off that he went so late. He felt he should have went earlier in the draft,” added Armstrong, then an assistant coach with Lehigh Valley.
“I think he’s proven a lot of people wrong, or for our sake, right.”
Why Bump, the 2022 USA Today High School Hockey Player of the Year, fell is irrelevant now. Just like the round he was drafted. As Flahr always says, it’s all about what you do after that matters. And what Bump, 21, has done has been impressive.
But first, Bump had to face some adversity. He played USHL hockey wrapped around his senior year but didn’t put up the biggest numbers the year after he graduated. A University of Vermont commit, he had to make a last-minute pivot when the Catamounts’ coach was fired, and found a home at Western Michigan in Kalamazoo, Mich.
Alex Bump, pictured at Western Michigan’s Frozen Four practice on Wednesday, was the NCHC’s top forward this year.
“I think that we’ve seen over the last two years is that his development has seemingly gone into hyperdrive. I think he’s ahead of schedule where we thought he would be this time two years ago,” FloHockey’s prospect analyst Chris Peters told The Inquirer. “So that’s a pretty positive development, because he was good in the USHL, but he wasn’t dominant. And now this year, you could say he was one of the best players in college hockey.”
Broncos coach Pat Ferschweiler, who was a linemate at Western Michigan with Flyers president Keith Jones, and the Flyers organization work in lockstep. Armstrong speaks with the coaching staff and Bump consistently, and goes over videos with the player to make sure they are all on the same page as far as his development and making sure he is NHL-ready.
How it will translate at the NHL level is to be determined. Ferschweiler says the Flyers got “an absolute steal.” He notes Bump’s “incredible hockey sense and incredible vision,” but feels what will really separate him and “what the Flyers fans are going to love, is, he’s got incredible compete.”
“Alex does not lack for confidence,” he said. “He’s got inner belief, because he works really hard, and that’s how belief is earned. He does that every day. So he’s not a cocky kid, but he does have self-belief, which I think there’s a fine line there and he walks on the right side of it.”
A pure goal scorer, Bump does need to continue to work on his skating. But those who know him best have seen improvement. This past winter break, Bump skated with his old high school team and Pankratz noted “how much stronger, more powerful of a skater he is.”
And they all know he will put in the work because he wants to succeed.
“I don’t think he’s ever really been a passenger.” Peters said. “He’s a driver, and especially at his age, and that program, and based on what they have surrounding him, like they needed him to be that, and he’s delivered. So he’s risen to the occasion.”
The Flyers and their fans will love to hear that because maybe, just maybe, he becomes another game-changer for a team that needs more of them to take that next step.
“I really do,” Armstrong said, when asked if Bump could be that type of guy. “I think, with Matvei [Michkov] as well. … You just have to have a little bit of patience to kind of see the rebuild through and wait for these kids to get there.
“Once they do, you’re going to have a couple of game-changers sitting right in front of you.”
Alex Bump’s shot is his No. 1 attribute but the Flyers see more than just that in the 21-year-old.
The 42-year-old man in addiction who died inside a Philadelphia jail days after his arrest in Kensington had been flagged as an “emergency” case by an intake worker at the jail, and should have received one-on-one supervision in the hours before he collapsed, according to records from the Department of Prisons.
But that didn’t happen, and instead, Andrew Drury died alone inside the holding cell, without having received a formal behavioral health evaluation by the prison staff, according to the records obtained by The Inquirer. His cause of death remains under investigation, though when he was jailed in the fall, he had been hospitalized multiple times from withdrawal-related health complications.
A spokesperson for the Philadelphia Department of Prisons declined to comment Friday.
Drury had been picked up by Philadelphia police on the night of March 6, after officers encountered him at Kensington Avenue and Somerset Street, and learned he had outstanding bench warrants related to a drug case in Maryland and a 2022 violation of a protection-from-abuse order filed in Philadelphia.
Police said Drury received off-site medical treatment over the next day before he was transferred to Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility around 2:15 a.m. on March 8. Police declined to say what kind of treatment he received, where he was treated, or how he was cleared for transfer to the jail.
Drury remained in an intake room at the jail until the next afternoon, waiting to be medically evaluated and assigned to a cell block. On March 9, around 9:30 a.m., an intake worker for the prisons assessed Drury and wrote that he was experiencing a range of physical and behavioral health issues and described him as extremely agitated and confused, according to the records.
Andrew Drury, left, and Jennifer Barnes had been homeless and struggling with addiction in Kensington for about two years. Drury died on March 9 inside a Philadelphia jail.
The employee labeled Drury as an emergency case, which, according to the records, should have required that he receive one-on-one supervision until he could be evaluated by a behavioral health worker.
Instead, Drury remained in his intake cell for another six hours. A jail guard walking through the area found him unresponsive at 1:45 p.m., and despite administering two doses of Narcan and other lifesaving measures, he was pronounced dead at 2 p.m., according to a spokesperson for the prison.
The Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office said Wednesday that doctors are awaiting toxicology results to determine his cause of death.
Drury had long struggled with an opioid addiction, and had been experiencing homelessness in Kensington for about two years, said his longtime girlfriend, Jennifer Barnes.
In an interview this week, Barnes, 44, said she believes he died from health complications related to withdrawal — something that he has been hospitalized for in the past.
When Drury was arrested in October on bench warrants related to the same cases, he was hospitalized multiple times, including for more than a week, after suffering a mild heart attack and other issues while going through withdrawal in jail, according to Barnes and a source familiar with Drury’s care at the time.
After Drury was released in November, Barnes said he was in and out of the hospital because of ongoing chest pains and shortness of breath.
Barnes said she worried about his health as she watched police arrest him that night.
“The withdrawal, it’s not good for him,” she said she told the officers. “He needs medical attention.”
Jennifer Barnes, whose fiancee Andrew Drury died while in jail, shown here in Philadelphia on Tuesday.
Drury’s death comes as the city ramps up enforcement efforts in Kensington, a section of the city that has long experienced concentrated violence, homelessness, and drug use in and around its massive open-air drug market. Mayor Cherelle L. Parker has said her administration would shut down the drug activity in the area and return a quality of life to the neighborhood’s residents.
But some advocates have warned city and law enforcement officials that the withdrawal effects for people who use opioids can be life-threatening, and that the understaffed jails might struggle to respond to people’s health needs in those circumstances.
Barnes said she and Drury were both from South Philadelphia, and had been dating since 2012 after meeting in a luncheonette in the neighborhood. They were not married, she said, but wore rings as if they were.
Andrew Drury and Jennifer Barnes in a photo before they became homeless in Kensington.
Barnes said she has struggled with addiction since about 2008. Drury also used drugs by the time they had met, she said, his troubles beginning after he underwent a weight loss surgery and got hooked on pain killers. For many years, they were both able to hold jobs and hide their addiction.
They bounced between friends’ and families’ homes, she said, until they were kicked out of Drury’s mother’s house in 2021 and she got a Protection From Abuse order against him. They’ve been on the streets of Kensington since about the summer of 2023, she said.
Drury was funny and loving, she said, and helped protect her from the dangers of living on the streets. They had both recently talked about wanting to go to rehab and getting their lives back on track.
Jennifer Barnes holds the sweatshirt of her longtime boyfriend, Andrew Drury, who died in jail on March 9.
Since his death, she said, she feels in a fog. She has connected with a friend who found a bed for her at a recovery house in South Jersey, and she hopes to go next week.
“For myself, and for him, it’s the best thing to do,” she said. “This way he won’t have to worry anymore.”
