The dirty business of censorship snuck its way into Philadelphia Thursday afternoon and removed panels from the President’s House memorial to the nine people enslaved by George Washington on Independence Mall.
Ripped from the walls was our history, our freedom of expression, and the respect and dignity for all human beings.
Peter Tobia,Philadelphia
The writer formerly worked as a visual journalist at The Inquirer.
. . .
What? No one protested and said they wouldn’t take down the slavery exhibit at the President’s House here in Philly? No one protested that taking down the pictures of enslaved people was destroying our country’s history, whitewashing a people’s history?
What kind of country rewrites history? Certainly not a democratic country. Little did I know that years ago, when I read Cry, the Beloved Country, I would now be crying for our own country.
And what would have happened if everyone refused to take down the exhibit? Of course, they knew they would lose their jobs. But beyond that, it would have made news, and I believe a lot of us Americans, particularly here in Philly, would have joined in their courageous protest.
After desecrating our history, how can we feel good about Philadelphia’s historical significance as the Semiquincentennial City in 2026?
Ettie Davis,Philadelphia
Cruel tradition
Bucks County is home to a cruel practice that most Pennsylvanians believe belongs in the past: live pigeon shoots. At the Philadelphia Gun Club in Bensalem, birds are released and shot at close range. It is reported that the club holds about a dozen shoots per year. While the vast majority of states have outlawed this cruelty, political maneuvering has allowed it to continue in Pennsylvania.
House Bill 1097, sponsored by State Rep. Perry Warren, aims to finally close this shameful chapter by banning live pigeon shoots statewide. The passage of this legislation is an urgent imperative. The movement to ban live pigeon shoots has a long history and is supported by a broad coalition of veterinarians, hunters, and concerned citizens. Yet, HB 1097 has languished for more than 30 years in the General Assembly.
Please contact your state representative and senator and demand they take immediate action by stating support for HB 1097. In November, every state representative and many state senators are up for reelection. To find your local lawmakers, visit: www.palegis.us/find-my-legislator.
Victor M. Verbeke,Pennsylvania Voters for Animals, Harleysville
A firmer foundation
Today, our Constitution, like the chassis of a very old car, is breaking down. Perhaps it’s time to trade it in. Our current Constitution, drafted in Philadelphia in 1787, certainly lasted longer than our first constitution, the Articles of Confederation — a document that was drafted in Philadelphia in 1777. Our founders were not hesitant to toss a constitution that was not working for a new and improved model. What better place than Philadelphia, and what better time than now to begin an inclusive conversation about a new foundation for our federal government? We deserve a government that is less chaotic and more respectful of the common citizen.
Hank Bienkowski, Boothwyn
Join the conversation: Send letters to letters@inquirer.com. Limit length to 150 words and include home address and day and evening phone number. Letters run in The Inquirer six days a week on the editorial pages and online.
DEAR ABBY: My best friend, “Brooke,” started dating a man, “Angus,” last year. From the start, he made a poor impression. He met Brooke while he was dating another woman but didn’t tell Brooke about her. Brooke continued hanging out with him only after he broke up with his girlfriend.
The past few months have been nothing short of awful. I see Brooke weekly for coffee, and all she does is tell me how mean Angus is to her and her family. He calls her names, emotionally manipulates her, tells her what she can and cannot wear and looks through every inch of her phone.
Her family loathes him. Her dad told me he never wants to see him again. They are constantly urging Brooke to end the relationship. None of her friends likes him, and she doesn’t seem to either, but will not, for whatever reason, break up with him.
Last week, they decided to get a puppy together. It’s getting exhausting for all parties, including Brooke. What should I do? Should I just leave it alone and let her figure it out and be there when it ends?
— WISE FRIEND IN NEBRASKA
DEAR WISE FRIEND: You are a supportive friend, but you cannot live Brooke’s life for her. Buying a puppy with someone who is abusive does not bode well for her or for the animal, which may become the focus of the abuser’s anger if he feels he cannot control Brooke. Because she won’t listen to family or friends, Brooke IS going to have to figure things out for herself. Save your advice for people who will listen.
** ** **
DEAR ABBY: My longtime friend has distanced herself over the last two years. Unless I call her or invite her to join us at our vacation home, I hear nothing from her, and we are never invited to visit them. We grew up together, were in each other’s weddings, raised our children together and went on many fun trips over the years.
When our husbands were hunting together a few weeks ago, her husband told mine that it would be better if we didn’t mention our grandchildren to them. All of their children have been married and divorced and have no plans to have children. I know she always wanted to be a grandmother, and I am sorry that didn’t happen. Sometimes my grandchildren call while our friends are visiting, and, of course, we have lots of pictures of them around, but we don’t talk about them all the time.
I don’t know how to handle this. I’m hurt that she would cut me off after all these years just because I have grandchildren.
— GAG ORDER IN GEORGIA
DEAR GAG ORDER: She is not cutting you off because you have grandchildren; she is LIMITING HER TIME WITH YOU because she doesn’t, and the phone calls and pictures are depressing for her. A way to handle this would be to see her away from your home so she isn’t constantly reminded.
Hours of percussive sleet layered a nasty icing on Philadelphia’s biggest snowfall in 10 years Sunday, and it may be some time before bare ground resurfaces in the region, if not normality.
“We’re going to have a rather glacial snowpack for the foreseeable future,” said Alex Staarmann, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Mount Holly.
This is not the stuff of postcards.
Michael Thompson (right) and Jonathan Ahmad clear snow Sunday in Old City.
Officially 9.1 inches of snow was measured at the unusually quiet Philadelphia International Airport, with similar amounts reported at some locations in the neighboring counties, as temperatures were stuck in the teens around Philly. Skippack, Montgomery County, reported just over a foot. For Philly, it also was a record for a Jan. 25.
Late in the morning, the snow flipped over to sleet, which continued in the evening and added to accumulations through the region, including an additional 2.5 inches at the weather service Mount Holly office.
Sleet — liquid that freezes before it lands — counts as snow in official measurements. In some places it fell at the rate of 0.5 inch an hour, the weather service said, an extraordinary rate for sleet.
And shovelers beware: That mess may weigh as much as a foot or more of pure snow. Besides, we may be out of practice. This was the most snow since the 22.4 inches of Jan. 22-23, 2016.
Along with sleet, some freezing rain — liquid that freezes on contact with a surface — was possible Sunday night, said Nick Guzzo, meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Mount Holly.
However, only scattered power outages, a function of the unusual behavior of a potent but peculiar storm that wrought a familiar set of disruptions and inconveniences.
At the airport, 651 of 672 flights were canceled Sunday, said spokesperson Heather Redfern, with the last departure at 10:30 a.m.
SEPTA suspended Regional Rail and bus service at 2 p.m. Sunday. Schools decided preemptively to close on Monday. Speeds were reduced on highways. Mayor Cherelle L. Parker advised everyone to stay in their houses and out of their cars.
Luis Nova digs his car out of his plowed-in space in an otherwise empty parking lot at the Westmont PATCO station in Haddon Township onSunday. Nova left his car there last Friday, and was in Philadelphia all weekend helping friends move and going to a goodbye party. He spent the morning sledding with friends in Clark Park in West Philadelphia, Nova said. “I knew what I was signing up for and was ready. I left all my equipment to get myself out. I spent four years in Rochester [New York] so I have a little experience with this. The only thing I’m missing is the kitty litter I usually keep in case I have to put it under the tires.”
Malls and other businesses called it a day. Blue Mountain decided to suspend ski operations until Monday at noon — and when was the last time a ski outfit shut down because of snow, of all things?
All things considered, a trauma-free day
For the abject unpleasantness of the weather Sunday, the region for the most part appeared to be trauma-free.
That probably had something to do with the fact that it was indeed, Sunday,and that the storm may have set an unofficial record for a pre-event drumbeat.
Computers had been on to something big happening for about a week, at one point suggesting historic amounts of snow for Philly. The anticipation and anxiety evidently were major boons to local supermarkets — where carb shortages and human stampedes were reported — and hardware stores.
In the end, the storm did unfold pretty much as the late-week forecasts suggested, with a thump of heavy snow in the morning with several inches accumulating.
One not-so-mild surprise was the cold, with temperatures during the day Sunday several degrees below forecasts.
The cold had a benefit: It resulted in a dry, powdery snow, said Tom Kines, senior meteorologist with AccuWeather. That robbed the region of that postcard look as the moderate winds were able to shake it off the trees, but it also reduced the power-outage potential.
For those who have endured long power outages, it very likely was worth the aesthetic deprivation.
When the snow turned to sleet during the late morning, temperatures were still in the teens, and the ice balls accumulated on the snowpack, adding unwanted weight.
The ice also will add endurance to the snowpack, meteorologists said. Snowflakes can out-melt ice anyway. So forget the yard work for a while.
The sleet was likely to yield to freezing rain Sunday evening along and near the I-95 corridor, the weather service said, perhaps adding up to 0.2 inches of ice, especially south and east of the city.
The precipitation was due to shut off during the early-morning hours of Monday. Then, the melt is going to take its good old time.
Temperatures Monday are expected to be in the upper 20s.
Then, it’s going to turn colder.
Highs in Philly will struggle to reach 20 Tuesday through Saturday, with overnight lows in the single digits.
The next several days should be dry, said Kines. Some talk is brewing about a storm threat late next weekend or early in the week, but that can wait for another day.
Staff writer Michael Klein contributed to this article.
Because of the snow and ice storm that hit roughly half of the nation on Sunday, the 76ers’ game against the Hornets in Charlotte, N.C., initially scheduled for Monday night, has been moved up to 3 p.m.
The game will be televised on NBC Sports Philadelphia.
The NBA postponed games in Memphis and Milwaukee on Sunday because of the massive winter storm that is creating dangerous travel conditions across much of the U.S.
The Dallas Mavericks tried twice to fly to Milwaukee for their Sunday night game against the Bucks, but conditions didn’t allow it. A decision to postpone was announced a few hours before tipoff. Food that had been prepared for the game was donated to shelters in the Milwaukee area.
Earlier Sunday, a game between the Denver Nuggets and Memphis Grizzlies was postponed about three hours before tipoff. Reschedule dates were not announced.
The league also changed the start time for the Indiana Pacers’ game at Atlanta Hawks from 7:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.
At least two college women’s basketball games were postponed: No. 17 Tennessee’s visit to No. 18 Mississippi on Monday and Tulane’s visit to Memphis on Tuesday. Reschedule dates were not announced.
In men’s basketball, a game featuring Tennessee at No. 21 Georgia was pushed back a day from Tuesday to Wednesday. Purdue Fort Wayne and IU Indianapolis, and Southern Illinois and Evansville had Sunday games postponed without make-up dates announced.
The action inside the gates of a Department of Streets yard in North Philadelphia hours before impending snow looks like a ballet.
An ensemble of tri-axle dump trucks wait in the wings (behind an orange traffic cone). Center stage (a salt dome), the excavator scoops up tons of rock salt in its jaws. The first truck makes its entrance and pirouettes (a three-point turn), while the excavator stretches its long arm, unloading heaps of salt into the truck bed. Then, a trumpet (the “beep” of a car horn) ushers the dump truck off (out through the yard’s gates).
“This is a matter of life and death in some cases if we don’t get this right,” Carlton Williams, director of the Office of Clean and Green Initiatives, said of the city’s road operations at a news conference Sunday. “We’re fighting it continuously.”
Tackling this snow event is a vast and complicated system, requiring a revolving cast of roughly 600 pieces of equipment and more than 1,000 employees, including contractors, and people and vehicles — like compactor trash trucks with plows attached — pulled in from other departments, officials said. It also calls for some improv, moving and adjusting with the ever-changing weather. This dance is sometimes more akin to organized chaos than choreography.
The curtain call time was 10 p.m. Saturday at the North Philadelphia yard for crews assigned to 151 different routes on the primary thruways, like Broad Street. At 11 p.m., the residential fleet — which handles 133 routes on smaller secondary and tertiary roads — clocked in. More staff were scheduled to arrive at staggered times throughout the storm.
There are roughly a hundred back-end staff working behind the curtain: They are the choreographers, tasked with managing crews, inputting data, monitoring street camera footage, and responding to phone calls or issues. They are in it for the long haul, prepared to spend days in front of a computer armed with spare clothes, a stockpile of food, caffeine, and personal hygiene products.
The drivers are assigned routes and vehicles, then fill up with salt — of which there were roughly 30,000 tons, or more than 66 million pounds, in storage Saturday night. The trucks leave the yard and typically head to the top of their route and await the OK to start plowing.
According to Williams, crews had been clearing since 5 a.m. Sunday. Snow must be expeditiously removed from the streets before salt can be spread. And with this storm, there was limited timing to get that done before the precipitation turned icy and whatever was on the ground froze. Just after noon, the snow was seemingly over, giving way to sleet.
Officials also deployed “lifting operations” Sunday afternoon to scoop up large snow piles amassed in the densest neighborhoods and deposit them elsewhere. One option was a trailer-sized snow melting machine, which liquefies 135 tons of snow per hour
Gov. Josh Shapiro revealed new details of what he described as childhood trauma, weighed in on President Donald Trump’s “facade of strength” in U.S. and foreign policy, and promised to work to “bring down the temperature” of political violence in a wide-ranging interview with CBS News Sunday Morning.
Shapiro told CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell that Trump’s actions are making Americans less safe, and said he has plans in place should the Trump administration attempt a surge of federal agents here.
“I think what the president is trying to do is show that he can be the dominant figure, that he can dictate behavior, whether we’re talking about Minneapolis or Greenland or Venezuela,” Shapiro said. “This president wants to try and show what he believes to be strength — that I think is a facade of strength and ultimately a veneer of strength.”
Shapiro, who has been promoting his new memoir, Where We Keep the Light, brought a CBS News producer to the synagogue he’s attended since childhood, Beth Sholom in Elkins Park, to discuss his personal journey.
He said he has never received therapy for harrowing experiences as a young boy, namely the fallout of his mother’s unspecified mental health struggles, that shaped his path well into adulthood.
“There were moments where a switch could be flipped and there’d be a lot of yelling and a lot of chaos and a lot of tumult in the house, and you would just want to retreat to your room and try and escape it all,” he said.
He added that the experience led him to public service: “That constant desire to find a solution to someone else’s problem, that’s driven by childhood trauma.”
The interview also touched on Shapiro’s vice presidential vetting, in which Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign asked him if he had been an Israeli agent. “I thought some of the commentary about my wife was not OK,” he said, “and I thought asking me if I was a double agent for the Israeli government was offensive.”
He said he called Harris’ campaign staffers after the interview to take himself out of the running.
And, he addressed the issue of political violence, including the arson attack on the governor’s mansion and the “strange conversation” with Trump that followed. “[Trump] said, you know, being president’s a really dangerous job. And he rattled off other jobs that have a lower fatality rate than presidents. And he said it’s very, very dangerous. Just be careful.”
Shapiro said the incident underscored the need for bipartisanship to “bring down the temperature” on all sides.
Neither Shapiro nor his interviewers made mention of his 2026 gubernatorial opponent, Republican state Treasurer Stacy Garrity. Instead, the conversation appeared to look ahead to 2028, and Shapiro’s potential as a presidential contender.
Still, Shapiro remains noncommittal about running. “That’s a conversation for another day,” he said.
Drexel hired Bill Herrion as men’s basketball coach in 1991. Replacing longtime head coach Eddie Burke, who led the Dragons to their first NCAA Tournament appearance in 1986, Herrion took the program to three more NCAA tourneys, and Malik Rose was a big reason.
Drexel assistant Walt Fuller recommended that Herrion recruit the overlooked center from Overbrook High, and Rose caught the first-year Drexel coach’s attention at the All-Star Labor Classic between the best players in the Public and Catholic Leagues.
It was enough to give Rose a scholarship.
“Coach Herrion saw something in me that nobody else really did,” said Rose, 51. “None of the Big 5 coaches thought they saw it. None of the other coaches in the region or the area saw it.”
Former Drexel coach Bill Herrion during the game between the Dragons and the Northeastern Huskies at the Daskalakis Athletic Center.
With the 6-foot-7 center as the program’s premier player, Herrion’s Dragons made the NCAA Tournament from 1994 to 1996. In its third and final appearance, Drexel upset Memphis as a No. 12 seed. Rose scored 21 points in what is still the only NCAA win in program history.
On Saturday, the Dragons welcomed Rose and Herrion into Drexel Athletics Hall of Fame during an 83-78 victory against Northeastern.
“It’s a very special and humbling event for me,” said Rose, Drexel’s all-time leading rebounder with 1,514. “It means a lot to me — probably more than any other sports memory I’ve had in my career.”
Added Herrion: “I’m very honored, very privileged for the recognition. But, I always go back to this. These things only happen as a coach if you’re very, very fortunate to have really good players.”
A lot of those players were in attendance Saturday. After Herrion and Rose made their way to center court, shaking hands with Drexel athletic director Maisha Kelly and university president Antonio Merlo, players from the ’90s tournament teams joined them.
Malik Rose and Bill Herrion were inducted into the Drexel Athletics Hall of Fame today pic.twitter.com/8GbwpGxhfE
“One of the reasons for this taking so long is because I never really wanted to do it,” Rose said. “I don’t really like a lot of this type stuff, but I spoke with Coach Herrion and Maisha the AD — she was really working hard. They were able to get a lot of my former teammates there. … That’s what really hit me. I was like, ‘Man, I get a chance to spend some time with the knuckleheads I rode the bus and the planes with.’”
The Charlotte Hornets drafted Rose in the second round in 1996, 44th overall, but he spent only one season in Charlotte before signing as a free agent with San Antonio. Rose was a valued role player for two championship teams in eight seasons with Spurs. After that, he played five years for the New York Knicks and a lone season in Oklahoma City. After a stint in broadcasting and multiple executive roles, Rose is now the head of basketball operations for the NBA G League.
Through all these stops, his Philadelphia roots have stuck around.
“When I was in the NBA, I think we had [around] 21 players from Philly that came up in the Philly [area] leagues: myself, Alvin Williams, Cuttino Mobley, Kobe [Bryant], Aaron McKie, Rasheed Wallace. … We all grew up playing together, from high school to the Pizza Hut three-on-three leagues up at King of Prussia to the hardwood courts of the NBA. We still have that brotherhood today.”
Bill Martin, a Drexel 2006 graduate and season ticket holder from North Jersey, wearing his jersey from Malik Rose’s time with the Knicks.
Herrion left Drexel after eight seasons. He coached for six years at East Carolina and 18 at New Hampshire. With the Wildcats, he garnered a program-high 227 victories. Herrion, who is now an assistant at Stonehill in Massachusetts, has the most wins in America East Conference history. His career record as a head coach is 464-472.
“The remainder of my head coaching career would not even have been possible if it wasn’t for those eight years at Drexel,” Herrion said. “The great thing about it was doing it in Philadelphia, which is such a great college basketball city. All the Big Five coaches I became friendly with. We finally gained unbelievable respect in the city.”
Now a member of the Big 5, Drexel no longer needs to vie for respect from the other programs. That is still not the biggest change from Herrion and Rose’s time with the Dragons, though. The average NIL budget for a mid-major program, like Drexel, is over $291,000.
“When I talk to some of my teammates, we remember over Christmas break that we were allowed to get $21 a day. It was like seven bucks a meal,” Rose said. “That’s all we could get each day over Christmas break, and we loved it. We were thankful for it. Times have definitely changed.”
Behind 22 points from Josh Reed, the current Dragons captured a bit of the energy from the NCAA Tournament teams that routinely packed Drexel’s gym. Afterward, Rose got his wish to spend some more time with his old teammates. The Dragons of the past celebrated a conference win with the team’s present players in the locker room.
FRISCO, Texas — Pennsylvania has been Drew Shelton’s home for the majority of his life. The Downingtown native, who starred at Downingtown West and was Penn State’s starting left tackle the last two seasons, is adjusting to life down South.
Shelton, 22, recently relocated to the Dallas area as he prepares for the next phase of his life with the impending NFL Scouting Combine next month and April’s NFL draft looming.
“It’s been a big transition down here,” Shelton told The Inquirer in a Frisco hotel lobby. “I haven’t lived away from home in a really long time, been in Pennsylvania pretty much all my life. I’m being down here and learning how to be on my own.”
It has been quite the journey for Shelton, who was a tight end in high school until he made a position switch to offensive tackle, helping further his playing career. Shelton sat behind 2024 first-round pick Olu Fashanu, although he briefly filled in for an injured Fashanu for five games in 2022 as a freshman.
The 6-foot-5, 296-pound Shelton started all 16 games for Penn State’s College Football Playoff appearance in the 2024 season and started all 12 regular-season games in 2025 for the Nittany Lions, whose season didn’t go as expected. But Shelton still thinks of his college experience fondly.
“Coming from Downingtown and growing into the offensive lineman that I needed to be at Penn State, and continuing to grow to be the offensive tackle I need to be in the NFL, it’s been fun. It’s been a challenge,” Shelton said. “You’re never going to be the player that you want to be overnight. It’s just you’ve got to consistently put in the work. And that’s really hard to tell an 18-year-old kid that you’re not going to be the starting left tackle at Penn State on Day 1. I guess it’s hard to come to terms with, but once you really understand and have the patience, that’s a big part of who you are and what you’re going to be.”
Drew Shelton will be joined by Penn State teammates Olaivavega Ioane and Nolan Rucci at the OL Masterminds workouts in Texas.
The next phase of Shelton’s life is in Texas because it’s where he is training for the combine, his pro day, and workouts with NFL teams. Shelton is working with Duke Manyweather, the cofounder of OL Masterminds, alongside Eagles right tackle Lane Johnson. Manyweather trains current and soon-to-be NFL offensive linemen at Sports Academy in Frisco.
And he won’t be alone. Former teammates Olaivavega Ioane, Penn State’s left guard, and Nolan Rucci, the Nittany Lions’ right tackle, are among the 15 draft-eligible offensive linemen working with the offensive line guru.
Manyweather’s “got some of the top offensive linemen in the league and in the draft,” said Shelton, who had meetings with NFL scouts and executives while they were in town for the East-West Shrine Bowl. “He puts a lot of work into us, builds us up, breaks us all the way down to stance to the fundamentals and all that kind of stuff, and builds us right back up.”
Shelton, who accepted his invite for the Senior Bowl in December, will not participate in the All-Star game to focus on his training and pre-draft process. Throughout his journey, Shelton has remained connected to former teammate Will Howard, whom he played with at Downingtown West and has been one of his closest friends for a long time.
Howard led Ohio State to a national championship and was selected in the sixth round of the 2025 NFL draft by the Pittsburgh Steelers. Shelton is hoping to follow in his footsteps, becoming the second Downingtown West alum to reach the NFL in as many years.
“Seeing someone that you know, and someone that you’ve played with … reach his goals, and obviously continuing to strive to for the next set of goals, that’s been cool,” Shelton said. “And for me personally, like, that’s a dream come true. Every kid dreams of being a professional athlete, and just to be have that be a reality here soon is pretty cool.”
In the waning days of the worst January any of us can remember, I desperately wanted to tell a good story about America, and then on Friday, I watched one unfold in frozen Minnesota with an abiding love and white-hot intensity that seemed to melt the subzero air.
The sight of as many as 50,000 people packing the downtown streets on a minus-9-degree day to demand federal immigration raiders leave Minneapolis was a high watermark for a pro-democracy movement that refuses to obey the autocracy of Donald Trump.
I was especially moved by the images of a polyglot of clergy from all across the nation — priests, rabbis, imams — leading the protests as they blocked traffic at the Minneapolis airport before marching on the headquarters of the giant retailer Target, pleading for an end to any cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The group included as many as a half dozen rabbis, Unitarian ministers, and other faith leaders from the Philadelphia area.
Saturday morning, I reached out to one of them: Rabbi Nancy Fuchs Kreimer, a professor emeritus at Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote. We talked about how, in a moment when pollsters and pundits fret about the steep decline in religiosity in American life, members of the clergy are providing a moral leadership so many crave.
Kreimer told me about the instant bond in Minneapolis between the many rabbis there — the ICE raids “had a magnetic quality to them because of the echoes of the Gestapo,” she said — and other faith leaders like Black clergy, who were reminded of 19th-century slave patrols, and white Protestant ministers ashamed over a rising tide of white Christian nationalism in the Republican Party.
Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum and protesters gather at Target headquarters in Minneapolis on Friday.
“People see coming out of the government — from out of the president, specifically — such cruelty, such contempt, such dehumanizing language, and just crudeness and awful meanness,” the rabbi said. “But yes, actually, people are looking for a different kind of culture of kindness. And yes, they can find it perhaps in a spiritual setting.”
While we were on the phone, one of the lowest and most immoral acts in America’s 250-year history was taking place on the same snow-covered Minneapolis streets that had just been overflowing Friday with a vast sea of righteousness.
At 9:05 a.m. Central Time, a 37-year-old community volunteer and nurse named Alex Pretti stepped between a half dozen masked federal agents and a female volunteer they were attacking with pepper spray, documenting the moment on his phone. In a split second, the goon squad had thrown Pretti to the ground, punching and kicking him in a brutal scene that looked like a documentary about the rise of Nazi Germany, or maybe an outtake from Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas.
Then, shockingly, a shot rang out. Then a volley of as many as 10 more. Pretti had been summarily executed in public by agents of the U.S. government, in a scene that was captured on multiple phone cameras from every angle and will haunt the American soul for generations to come.
Federal agents claimed Alex Pretti, 37, forced their hand on a Minneapolis street Saturday morning, alleging he “violently resisted” disarmament until the officers fired “defensive shots.”
In the first 24 days of 2026, there have been three homicides in the city of Minneapolis. Two of them have been committed by agents from ICE or the U.S. Border Patrol. And the similarities between Saturday’s murder and the Jan. 7 fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good go beyond the sad fact that both victims were 37-year-old millennials who’d moved to Minneapolis in hopes the progressive enclave could offer them a better life, only to see their dreams cut short by a repressive regime.
Both Good and Pretti came under a vicious second attack before their families had even been notified — falsely slandered as “terrorists” by their own government that lacks even the tiniest shred of human decency. As with Good’s murder, the Trump regime asked Americans to believe a ridiculously fabricated version of what went down on Nicollet Avenue instead of their own eyes and ears.
This time, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security raced out the lies that Pretti — who was legally carrying a licensed, holstered handgun — had brandished his weapon at the Border Patrol officers, when videos show the nurse only holding his phone, and alsowhen the gun was safely pulled away by an agent before the shooting began. DHS spun a fantasy that Pretti was there to kill officers when he was just protecting his neighbors.
“The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting,” the victim’s heartbroken parents, Michael and Susan Pretti, said in a statement late Saturday, adding: “Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man.”
When Good was slain less than three weeks ago, I wrote that her death might mark a turning point in the war for objective truth that requires combating the Orwellian Big Lies at the core of the Trump regime’s tyrannical rule. Both in Friday’s massive protests and Saturday’s aftermath to Pretti’s murder, you see how America is already changing — for good.
A protester holds a sign reading “Love thy neighbor -Jesus” during a rally against federal immigration enforcement on Friday in Minneapolis.
Even online message boards about the most nonpolitical topics — like cats — were cluttered Saturday with posts expressing outrage or denouncing ICE and the Trump regime. A pundit for the ultimate dude-bro, anti-“woke” site, Barstool Sports, wrote that “Pretti was murdered by ICE with zero justification for deadly force,” while NBA All-Star Tyrese Haliburton tweeted in agreement: “Alex Pretti was murdered.”
Most importantly, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), with the ability to stop most legislation with a filibuster by 41 of the chamber’s 47 Democrats, announced Saturday that he will work to block a new appropriations bill for DHS that’s due by the end of the month as long as ICE occupies Minneapolis and keeps abusing people. The time is right. A fight over funding ICE could be the decisive battle of the Trump years, and it’s clear many Americans are ready for this fight.
The tired conventional wisdom of politics that has cowed the likes of Schumer for so long also died in that hail of gunfire on Saturday. This thing is way beyond politics now. The brute force and absurd lies of a would-be American dictatorship have finally made people realize this is no longer left vs. right, but good vs. evil.
“My father warned us, ‘When evil men plot, good men must plan. When evil men burn and bomb, good men must build and bind,’” Bernice King, the daughter of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., wrote of Pretti’s murder. “What we are witnessing now (masked raids, people taken without due process, vigilante, Gestapo, and slave patrol-like tactics, normalized under the color of law) is a moral crisis.”
That moral fight has come full circle. In 1965, the televised images of Alabama state troopers clubbing peaceful voting rights marchers in Selma led hundreds of clergy from across America to fly south to join King in a march on the state capital of Montgomery. One of those ministers, the Rev. James Reeb of Boston, was murdered by racist thugs. That historic effort inspired today’s faith leaders who descended on Minneapolis.
This undated photo provided by Michael Pretti shows Alex Pretti, the man who was shot by federal officers in Minneapolis on Saturday.
“People are searching for values,” Kreimer said after returning from her sessions with Minnesota activists, who trained her on how to organize people when ICE inevitably descends on Philadelphia. She added that they are “saying, ‘I am repelled by this. What is it about this? It’s not OK. What is it in the way that I live my life that I need to do about this?’”
There’s no disputing that church attendance is nowhere near what it was in 1965, or that organized religion has the same kind of public trust issues as other institutions. But the unthinkable scenes of thuggery on once placid American streets, and the blatant lies from our leaders, clearly have people asking questions about the arc of a moral universe that has been suppressed for far too long.
It’s been too easy to become jaded about the word evil and its meaning when that term has been abused by cynical politicians to justify their pointless wars.
But it’s become impossible to watch the courage of whistleblowing everyday citizens putting their lives on the line to fight for the neighbors they don’t even know, or to see the utter depravity of top government officials slandering innocent murder victims while their bodies are still warm, and not conclude: Yes, there is good and evil in this world.
The church pews might be empty, but millions of Americans are still desperate to affirm that they love thy neighbor. In the shock and sorrow over the Minneapolis murders, this is something we can all cling to.
I don’t know what lies ahead on this bumpy road, or how many more Alex Prettis or Renee Goods will have to die before the positive moral force that finally awoke in Minneapolis can fully reclaim America. It’s tough to think about right now. But what’s clear is this: The time for choosing is today. Which side are you on?
“Terrible things are happening outside. At any time of night and day, poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes … Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared … Everyone is scared … No one can keep out of the conflict … the end is nowhere in sight.”
Donald Trump’s masked marauders murdered another U.S. citizen in Minneapolis on Saturday, a senseless killing in a senseless war playing out in broad daylight on America’s streets.
Cell phone videos showed one of Trump’s immigration enforcement goons violently pushing a woman to the ground. As a man recording the agents tried to intervene, at least seven federal agents surrounded and dragged him to the ground as another beat him with a canister.
As the agents struggled to subdue the man, another agent appeared to remove a gun from the scrum. A Border Patrol agent then shot the man in the back from close range. A third agent pulled out his gun as nine more shots were fired within seconds.
Several agents scampered away as Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen with no criminal record, lay motionless on the street.
This undated photo provided by Michael Pretti shows Alex Pretti, the man who was shot by a federal officer in Minneapolis on Saturday.
After the shooting, a crowd of protesters shouted profanities at the federal officers, calling them “cowards” and urging them to leave. One officer mockingly responded, “Boo-hoo.”
Pretti’s killing came two weeks after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis killed Renee Good — a mother of three and a U.S. citizen — as she tried to maneuver her SUV out of the street. A week later, a DoorDash delivery driver was shot in the leg by ICE agents in Minneapolis.
After the two killings, Trump and his loyal lieutenants tried to blame the victims and local Democratic leaders. But cell phone videos showed the truth: Trump’s jackboots have now plainly executed two U.S. citizens.
The American people can see the lawless mayhem with their own eyes.
Trump has unleashed a paramilitary of ICE and Border Patrol agents into American streets with a license to arrest, confront, detain, beat, or kill anyone who gets in their way — even if it is an off-duty police officer or a 5-year-old boy.
Any pretense of federal investigations into abuses by ICE or others doing Trump’s bidding is quickly compromised or shut down. Constitutional rights are ignored. The rule of law is now set by Trump’s morality, which appears to thrive on cruelty.
Federal immigration agents must leave Minneapolis and end their vigilantism. But who will stop them?
There are no checks on Trump’s power, as his administration is stocked with unqualified lackeys competing for his attention.
Protesters chant and bang on trash cans Saturday as they stand behind a makeshift barricade during a protest in response to the death of 37-year-old Alex Pretti, who was fatally shot by a U.S. Border Patrol agent earlier in the day in Minneapolis.
The Republicans who control Congress have abdicated their constitutional duty, while conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court continue to enable the president.
Sadly, justice left town after the U.S. Senate — including Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman and Dave McCormick — confirmed Pam Bondi, one of Trump’s personal lawyers, as attorney general.
The FBI has been decimated by Kash Patel, an unqualified incompetent, pushing conspiracy theories and vendettas. Kristi Noem has turned the U.S. Department of Homeland Security into a Bull Connor-like police force, led by Gregory Bovino in his greatcoat.
The architect behind the draconian ICE crackdown is Stephen Miller, an unelected and unconfirmed senior adviser and speechwriter with a history of white nationalist ties and bigotry.
Republicans enabled the surge in ICE man power and funding when they approved Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill. If the GOP will not stop Trump, then voters must act come November.
ICE was supposed to go after the “worst of the worst” people who entered the country illegally. Instead, Trump and his lawless administration have occupied cities, caused civil unrest, and accomplished essentially nothing.
Tens of thousands of immigrants arrested have no criminal records. Others are collateral damage. After Good was killed, Trump said that “things happen.”
Pretti was among the best in America. He was a nurse in an intensive care unit that served veterans. He died trying to help a woman attacked by a masked thug.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey asked the question many want to know about the Trump administration’s growing domestic war: “How many more Americans need to die?”
