SURFSIDE, Fla. — With nearly 160 people unaccounted for and at least four dead after a seaside condominium tower collapsed into a smoldering heap of twisted metal and concrete, rescuers used both heavy equipment and their own hands to comb through the wreckage on Friday in an increasingly desperate search for survivors.
As scores of firefighters in Surfside, just north of Miami, toiled to locate and reach anyone still alive in the remains of the 12-story Champlain Towers South, hopes rested on how quickly crews using dogs and microphones could complete their grim, yet delicate task.
“Any time that we hear a sound, we concentrate in that area,” Miami-Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah said. “It could be just steel twisting, it could be debris raining down, but not specifically sounds of tapping or sounds of a human voice.”
Buffeted by gusty winds and pelted by intermittent rain showers, two heavy cranes began removing debris from the pile using large claws in the morning, creating a din of crashing glass and metal as they picked up material and dumped it to the side.
Once the machines paused, firefighters wearing protective masks and carrying red buckets climbed atop the pile to remove smaller pieces by hand in hope of finding spots where people might be trapped. In a parking garage, rescuers in knee-deep water used power tools to cut into the building from below.
Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said crews were doing everything possible to save as many people as they could.
“We do not have a resource problem, we have a luck problem,” he said.
Flowers left in tribute decorated a fence near the tower, and people awaiting news about the search watched from a distance, hands clasped and hugging. Nearby on the beach, visitor Faydah Bushnaq of Sterling, Virginia, knelt and scratched “Pray for their souls” in the sand.
“We were supposed to be on vacation, but I have no motivation to have fun,” Bushnaq said. “It is the perfect time to say a prayer for them.”
Three more bodies were removed overnight, and Miami-Dade Police Director Freddy Ramirez said authorities were working with the medical examiner’s office to identify the victims. Eleven injuries were reported, with four people treated at hospitals.
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said rescuers were at “extreme risk” going through the rubble.
“Debris is falling on them as they do their work. We have structural engineers on-site to ensure that they will not be injured, but they are proceeding because they are so motivated and they are taking extraordinary risk on the site every day,” she said.
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue personnel search for survivors through the rubble at the Champlain Towers South Condo in Surfside, Fla. Friday, June 25, 2021. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue via AP
With searchers using saws and jackhammers to look for pockets large enough to hold a person, Levine Cava said there was still reason to have hope.
Rachel Spiegel described her mother, 66-year-old Judy Spiegel, who was among the missing, as a loving grandmother known for chauffeuring her two granddaughters everywhere, advocating for Holocaust awareness and enjoying chocolate ice cream every night.
“I’m just praying for a miracle,” Spiegel said. “We’re heartbroken that she was even in the building.”
Teenager Jonah Handler was rescued from the rubble hours after the collapse, but his mother, Stacie Fang, died. Relatives issued a statement expressing thanks “for the outpouring of sympathy, compassion and support we have received.”
“There are no words to describe the tragic loss of our beloved Stacie,” it said.
Many people waited at a reunification center for results of DNA swabs that could help identify victims.
While officials said no cause for the collapse has been determined, Gov. Ron DeSantis said a “definitive answer” was needed in a timely manner. Video showed the center of the building appearing to tumble down first, and a section nearest to the ocean teetering and coming down seconds later.
About half the building’s roughly 130 units were affected, and rescuers used cherry pickers and ladders to evacuate at least 35 people from the still-intact areas in the first hours after the collapse. But with 159 still unaccounted for, work could go on for days.
Television video early Friday showed crews fighting flareups of fires on the rubble piles.
Rubble at the Champlain Towers South Condo is seen, Friday, June 25, 2021, in Surfside.Gerald Herbert/AP
Computers, chairs, comforters and other personal belongings were evidence of shattered lives amid the wreckage of the Champlain, which was built in 1981 in Surfside, a small suburb north of Miami Beach. A child-size bunk bed perched precariously on a top floor, bent but intact and apparently inches from falling into the rubble.
Fernando Velasquez said his 66-year-old brother Julio, his sister-in-law Angela and their daughter Theresa, who was visiting from California, were in the building when it fell.
“I miss my brother very much. I talk to him almost every day,” said Velasquez, of Elmhurst, New York. “His call was always a welcoming call. But I know he’s in heaven, because he was in love with Christ. If he is gone, he is in a much better place.”
The missing include people from around the world.
Israeli media said the country’s consul general in Miami, Maor Elbaz, believed that 20 citizens of that country are missing. Another 22 people were unaccounted for from Argentina, Venezuela, Uruguay and Paraguay, where an aide said first lady Silvana de Abdo Benitez flew to Miami because her sister, brother-in-law, their three children and a nanny were among the missing.
Gilmer Moreira, press director for the government palace, said the wife of Paraguayan President Mario Abdo Benitez has “has already received official information about the search for her family” and was awaiting more details.
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Associated Press writers Tim Reynolds and Ian Mader in Miami; Freida Frisaro and Kelli Kennedy in Fort Lauderdale; Bobby Caina Calvan in Tallahassee; Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Alabama; R.J. Rico in Atlanta; and Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee, contributed to this report.
MINNEAPOLIS — George Floyd’s family spoke in court Friday of the pain they felt over his murder and asked for the maximum punishment for former Officer Derek Chauvin as Chauvin faced sentencing for the crime that set off a fierce reckoning over racial injustice in America.
“We don’t want to see no more slaps on the wrist. We’ve been through that already,” said a tearful Terrence Floyd, one of Floyd’s brothers.
Floyd’s nephew Brandon Williams said: “Our family is forever broken.” And Floyd’s 7-year-old daughter, Gianna, in a video played in court, said that if she could say something to her father now, it would be: “I miss you and and I love you.”
Chauvin, 45, faced a potential decades-long sentence, with some legal experts predicting 20 to 25 years. He is also awaiting trial on federal civil rights charges in Floyd’s death, along with three other fired officers who have yet to have their state trials.
The concrete barricades, razor wire and National Guard patrols at the courthouse during Chauvin’s three-week trial in the spring were gone Friday, reflecting an easing of tensions since the verdict in April. Still, there was recognition that the sentencing was another major step forward for Minneapolis since Floyd died on May 25, 2020.
“Between the incident, the video, the riots, the trial — this is the pinnacle of it,” said Mike Brandt, a local defense attorney who closely followed the case. “The verdict was huge too, but this is where the justice comes down.”
Chauvin was convicted of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter for pressing his knee against Floyd’s neck for up to 9 1/2 minutes as the 46-year-old Black man gasped that he couldn’t breathe and went limp.
Bystander video of Floyd’s arrest on suspicion of passing a counterfeit $20 bill at a corner store prompted protests around the world and led to scattered violence in Minneapolis and beyond.
Minnesota sentencing guideline s called for 12 1/2 years, but Judge Peter Cahill agreed with prosecutors ahead of Friday’s proceedings that there were aggravating circumstances that could justify a heavier punishment — among them, that Chauvin treated Floyd with particular cruelty, abused his position of authority as a police officer and did it in front of children.
Prosecutors asked for 30 years, saying Chauvin’s actions were egregious and “shocked the nation’s conscience.” The defense requested probation, saying Chauvin was the product of a “broken” system and “believed he was doing his job.”
With good behavior, Chauvin could get out on parole after serving about two-thirds of his sentence.
Before the sentencing, the judge denied Chauvin’s request for a new trial. Defense attorney Eric Nelson had argued that the intense publicity tainted the jury pool and that the trial should have been moved away from Minneapolis.
The judge also rejected a defense request for a hearing into possible juror misconduct. Nelson had accused a juror of not being candid during jury selection because he didn’t mention his participation in a march last summer to honor the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Prosecutors countered the juror had been open about his views.
Ben Crump, an attorney for the family, said relatives were “anxious and tense” ahead of the proceedings. “To us, George Floyd is a cause. He’s a case. He’s a hashtag. To them — that’s their flesh and blood. You know, that that’s their brother,” Crump said.
It was unclear whether Chauvin would break his long silence and speak at his sentencing. Some experts expressed doubt he would say anything because of the risk his words could be used against him in the federal case. No date for that trial has been set.
But Brandt said Chauvin could say a few words without getting into legal trouble. “I think it’s his chance to tell the world, ‘I didn’t intend to kill him,'” the attorney said. “If I was him, I think I would want to try and let people know that I’m not a monster.”
Chauvin did not testify at his trial. The only explanation the public heard from him came from body-camera footage in which he told a bystander at the scene: “We got to control this guy ’cause he’s a sizable guy … and it looks like he’s probably on something.”
Philip Stinson, a criminal justice professor at Bowling Green State University, said 11 non-federal law officers, including Chauvin, have been convicted of murder for on-duty deaths since 2005. The penalties for the nine who were sentenced before Chauvin ranged from from six years, nine months, to life behind bars, with the median being 15 years.
With Chauvin’s sentencing, the Floyd family and Black America faced something of a rarity: In the small number of instances in which officers accused of brutality or other misconduct against Black people have gone to trial, the list of acquittals and mistrials is longer than the list of sentencings after conviction.
In recent years, the acquittals have included officers tried in the deaths of Philando Castile in suburban Minneapolis and Terence Crutcher in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Two mistrials were declared over the death of Samuel Dubose in Cincinnati.
“That’s why the world has watched this trial, because it is a rare occurrence,” said Arizona-based civil rights attorney Benjamin Taylor, who has represented victims of police brutality. “Everybody knows that this doesn’t happen every day.”
Several people interviewed in Minneapolis before Chauvin’s sentencing said they wanted to see a tough sentence.
Thirty years “doesn’t seem like long enough to me,” said Andrew Harer, a retail worker who is white. “I would be fine if he was in jail for the rest of his life.”
Joseph Allen, 31, who is Black, said he would like to see Chauvin get a life sentence, adding that he hopes other police officers learn “not to do what Derek Chauvin did.”
As for whether she would like to hear Chauvin speak, Levy Armstrong said: “For me as a Black woman living in this community, there’s really nothing that he could say that would alleviate the pain and trauma that he caused. … I think that if he spoke it would be disingenuous and could cause more trauma.”
Chauvin has been held since his conviction at the state’s maximum-security prison in Oak Park Heights, where he has been kept in a cell by himself for his own protection, his meals brought to him.
The three other officers are scheduled for trial in March on state charges of aiding and abetting both murder and manslaughter.
Associated Press writers Aaron Morrison and Stephen Groves and Associated Press/Report for America reporter Mohamed Ibrahim contributed to this report.
Man, that Scottie Pippen, what a basketball player! The lockdown defense! The silky smoothness! The balletic dunks that counterbalanced Michael Jordan’s fierce slams!
Whenever someone starts a column listing all the things they like about a person, you can be pretty sure there will be a “but” soon after. And you can be pretty sure it won’t end well for that person.
But …
But I wish the part of Pippen’s brain that produces opinions would shut down. When it comes to hot takes, the man is a wildfire. He makes big, bold, noisy statements, then stands back to watch the flames. He’s the guy at the restaurant whose voice reaches every diner. You asked for a table with a view, not a viewpoint.
I know Pippen won’t stop talking, because he can’t help himself. I have a simple solution, however: My first vacation since the pandemic hit will be a long vacation from Scottie Pippen.
His latest unloading, the one that led to my Scottie sabbatical, came in an interview with GQ. In it, he more than implied that Bulls coach Phil Jackson was racially biased when he called a play for Toni Kukoc late in a 1994 playoff game against the Knicks. Jackson and Kukoc are both white. Pippen, who is black, infamously sat out the final 1.8 seconds of that game in protest of the play selection. Kukoc went on to hit the game-winning shot.
“I felt like it was an opportunity to give (Kukoc) a rise,” Pippen told the magazine. “It was a racial move to give him a rise. After all I’ve been through with this organization, now you’re gonna tell me to take the ball out and throw it to Toni Kukoc? You’re insulting me. That’s how I felt.”
I ask you, dear reader: Why would Jackson pick the closing moments of Game 3 of a second-round series to promote any bigoted views he might hold? A series, by the way, that the Bulls trailed 2-0? Wouldn’t he have shown this tendency throughout his career as the Bulls head coach? If there was evidence of it, why haven’t we heard about it until now?
The logical answer to all of this is that Pippen has been lugging around the hurt of those 1.8 seconds for a long time, and, after years of festering, it has taken on this jagged shape. The problem is that it doesn’t fit with anything we know or have heard about Jackson.
Pippen spent most of his career as Jordan’s very talented sidekick, and that designation has been incredibly good to him. It brought him six NBA titles and a spot on the NBA’s top-50 list in 1996. But he also seems to look upon his status as No. 2 to Jordan’s No. 1 as an affliction that has robbed him of his due.
The part of the GQ interview that has gotten the most national attention is Pippen’s takedown of Kevin Durant’s recent postseason performance.
“KD, as great as his offense was, it turned out to be his worst enemy because he didn’t know how to play team basketball,” Pippen said. “He kept trying to go punch for punch.”
That led Durant to tweet about Pippen’s refusal to go on the floor for the final 1.8 seconds of the 1994 game.
And, sigh, here we are. Another Scottie-started fire that had talk shows across the country buzzing.
Pippen just released his own bourbon and has a memoir coming out, but anyone who has paid attention to him knows that he doesn’t need a book or booze launch to say crazy things. I can’t keep track of where he stands on whether Jordan is the best player of all time. Four years ago, he said that LeBron James had “probably” passed Jordan as the GOAT. Two years ago, he said James wasn’t as good as Jordan or Kobe Bryant. If you asked him today, he’d probably say: “Michael Jordan? I don’t know a Michael Jordan.”
Pippen opens his mouth, and a whole crew of people is there for the parsing. It reminds me of the salt trucks and snowplows that wait by the side of the highway in anticipation of a storm. It’s great for talk shows and newspaper columnists, unless you’re tired of the crazy uncle routine.
I’m well aware that there are people out there who wish I would give my opinions a rest. You’re free to take a vacation from me. I’m also aware that squeaky wheels like Pippen keep columnists like me very busy. But sometimes beggars can indeed be choosers.
An industrial explosion that shook Rockton more than a week ago has officials worried about the possibility of environmental damage to the nearby Rock River, which faces a threat from the more than one million gallons of crude oil stored at the now-destroyed chemical plant north of Rockford.
Protecting the river is largely being left to Lubrizol, which owns the Chemtool plant, though state and federal environmental agencies say they’re keeping watch.
Five days after the disaster, the fire chief handed over command responding to the disaster to the chemical maker on June 19.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials warned that the oil, much of it still contained in massive containers that were left structurally weakened, poses a significant threat to the river that’s only about 700 feet away.
“If oil got into the river, it could endanger wildlife and dissolve certain chemicals,” says Craig Thomas, the federal EPA’s on-scene coordinator. “In this instance, I feel fortunate. It seems like all of the products have been contained onsite.”
Chemtool also produces greases, additives and other industrial fluids. The EPA estimated the site contained several million gallons of grease.
Officials also are concerned about toxic contaminants being released into the air and are testing to determine whether pollution levels are safe. Nothing has exceeded safety limits set by the EPA, but there have been excessive amounts of particle pollution that can reach into the lungs, causing irritation and more serious harm.
The company says it’s cooperating with investigators.
The river isn’t a source of drinking water but is used for fishing and recreation and connects to the Mississippi River around the Quad Cities. Parts of the river already are impaired by agricultural and industrial pollution.
Lubrizol contractors have built two trenches — 1,400 feet and 1,600 feet long — to try to capture oil and wastewater before it reaches the river. And 2,700 feet of floating barrier was placed near shore. The contractors also built a containment berm closer to the now-leveled building that’s six feet high, 50 feet wide and 250 feet long.
The reinforcement is needed because large containers holding oil and other fluids are showing structural damage, according to Thomas.
The blast June 14 produced a giant fireball, massive clouds of black smoke and fires that burned for more than a week, forcing nearby residents to evacuate.
It also triggered an investigation from a federal agency that responds to the nation’s worst chemical disasters.
“This caught our attention because of the potential impact to the community and the environment,” says David LaCerte, acting managing director of the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board.
It appears that an initial combustion in the plant, possibly caused by machinery coming into contact with a pipe, led to subsequent explosions, LeCerte says.
This aerial photo shows large containers still standing at the destroyed Chemtool plant in Rockton. Officials worry that more than one million gallons of oil stored at the site is a threat to the Rock River.Rick Kurtz
Rockton, a town of about 7,600 people, was hardly prepared to handle a disaster of such magnitude. More than 160 fire departments, with more than 350 firefighters, helped extinguish the fire, according to Rockton Fire Chief Kirk Wilson.
Wilson was in charge of the emergency response until he turned over the command last weekend to Lubrizol fire chief Robert Campise, who wasn’t available for comment.
Wilson says Lubrizol has a better understanding chemical disasters. The company had a large explosion and fire at a plant in France in 2019.
“With any industrial fire incident like this, this is their forte,” Wilson says.
“It defies logic,” Angela Fellars, a Winnebago County Board member, says of leaving the company whose plant exploded in charge in the aftermath. “But there are a lot of things about this situation that defies logic.”
The company’s contractor sprayed a harmful foam on the fire that required state environmental officials to test water in the area to make sure it wasn’t contaminated. Those results have not yet been made public.
Three lawsuits have been filed related to the explosion.
Some officials have questioned Lubrizol’s safeguards and its handling of the response. A Facebook group, Citizens for Chemtool Accountability, formed days after the explosion. Elizabeth Lindquist, a trustee of nearby Roscoe Township who helped start the group, says she was shocked to learn of the oil threat.
“I am totally surprised,” Lindquist says. “I assumed there was a decent quantity but not that much.”
Jim Webster, the Winnebago County Board member who represents the area and lives in Rockton, says most people he has spoken with “weren’t too wound up about it.”
“Is there a cause for concern?” Webster says. “Yes, absolutely. We really don’t know what the long-term effects are. We won’t know about the long term for a while.”
Brett Chase’s reporting on the environment and public health is made possible by a grant from The Chicago Community Trust.
The outlook for home prices has gotten brighter than I thought possible
Zillow and Pulsenomics released their 2nd Quarter 2021 Home Price Expectations Survey a couple of weeks ago, only 2 months after the release of their first quarter survey. That first quarter survey was already pretty optimistic but these real estate experts just provided an even more optimistic outlook. If you compare the graph below to the previous one you’ll see that they are now forecasting 8.7% growth for the nation’s home prices during 2021 vs. 6.2% last quarter. According to the press release that’s “the highest for any year since the inception of the quarterly survey in 2010″.
The cumulative, 5 year forecast is now for 26.7% which works out to 4.8% per year compounded. That compares to 23.4% last quarter. Most of that difference is in 2021.
The home price growth forecast of real estate experts is the highest it’s ever been
So what’s going on? Demand is still strong coming out of the pandemic and supply is still constrained by weak new home construction and the reluctance of existing homeowners to move during the pandemic. Terry Loebs, founder of Pulsenomics, addressed two of these factors:
A profound shift in housing preferences, adoption of remote employment, low mortgage rates, and the recovering economy continue to stoke demand in the single-family market and drive prices higher. Strict zoning regulations, an acute labor shortage, and record-high materials costs are constraining new construction, compounding disequilibrium, and reinforcing expectations that above-normal rates of home price growth will persist beyond the near-term.
As part of a follow on survey the panelists were asked what they thought was constraining new construction and what could be done to encourage more. Interestingly, they mostly blamed market factors (costs, labor shortages, etc…) for constraining new construction but then thought the problem could be solved by basically reducing various government barriers to construction. It seemed pretty inconsistent to me.
Chicago Area Home Price Outlook
As usual I’m turning to John Dolan, the market maker for Case Shiller home price futures, for some semblance of where Chicago area home prices might be heading. He was kind enough to provide me with the latest data and the graph below. Note that the contract months shown are for February, which corresponds to data for the 3 months ending in December of the prior year. So this looks out through the end of 2025.
At least the graph is pointing upwards now. Before the pandemic that was not true. It was kinda flat. From the end of 2020 the cumulative appreciation now works out to 15.9%, which is obviously much lower than the outlook for the nation discussed above. Sad. And that works out to 3.0% per year. These numbers are almost negligibly better than they were the last time I checked on them.
The outlook for Chicago home prices has also improved, though it’s not as optimistic as it is for the nation
Gary Lucido is the President of Lucid Realty, the Chicago area’s full service real estate brokerage that offers home buyer rebates and discount commissions. If you want to keep up to date on the Chicago real estate market or get an insider’s view of the seamy underbelly of the real estate industry you can Subscribe to Getting Real by Email using the form below. Please be sure to verify your email address when you receive the verification notice.
After 20 years in the corporate world and running an Internet company, Gary started Lucid Realty with his partner, Sari. The company provides full service, while discounting commissions for sellers and giving buyers rebates.
Former Blackhawks video coach Bradley Aldrich’s alleged sexual assault of two Hawks players in May 2010 was widely known by the entire team during the 2010 playoffs, per a Friday report by The Athletic.
An unidentified player from the 2010 Stanley Cup-winning team told The Athletic that “every single guy on the team knew.”
Nick Boynton, a defenseman on the 2010 team, told The Athletic he was also aware of the incident and trusted then-skills coach Paul Vincent to alert upper management and take the necessary steps to remedy the situation.
Vincent told TSN earlier this month that he did inform then-president John McDonough, general manager Stan Bowman, executive Al MacIsaac and skills coach James Gary about Aldrich’s alleged assault at a 2010 meeting, but that the group of Hawks executives rejected Vincent’s request to report the incident to police.
Brent Sopel, another defenseman on the 2010 team, tweeted Friday that The Athletic’s report was “accurate.”
“The front office staff should be in jail,” Sopel said in a separate tweet. “The NHL is showing [their] true colours. Gary [Bettman, NHL commissioner] doesn’t care about anyone but himself. This is absolutely disgusting that the NHL is doing nothing.”
The Hawks are currently facing a lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court from one of the two former players — identified under the pseudonym “John Doe” in the lawsuit — who alleged Aldrich assaulted him.
Aldrich “sent . . . inappropriate text messages,” “turned on porn and began to masturbate in front of [Doe] . . . without his consent” and “threatened to injure [Doe] . . . physically, financially and emotionally if [Doe] . . . did not engage in sexual activity,” according to the lawsuit filed May 7.
The player reported Aldrich’s assault to James Gary, the skills coach, but Gary “did nothing” and instead “convinced [Doe] . . . that the sexual assault was his fault,” according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit seeks $150,000 in damages from the Hawks, claiming the player continues to suffer from the trauma of the incident. The player told WBEZ Chicago this week that the sexual assault “took me out of the high point of my game.”
The Hawks filed a motion June 14 to dismiss the lawsuit, but the motion was based on legal grounds — arguing the statue of limitations had expired and the player did not exhaust his legal options before suing — rather than the alleged facts of the assault, according to court documents obtained by the Sun-Times. The Hawks also filed an objection to discovery requests by the player’s lawyer this week.
The Hawks denied wrongdoing in a statement last month to the Sun-Times, but have not responded to repeated requests for comment since. NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly told The Athletic on Friday that the NHL has “been in contact with the [Hawks] regarding the matter but there is no ongoing investigation.”
Aldrich left the Hawks after the 2010 season but continued a pattern of inappropriate behavior.
Aldrich was briefly employed by the Miami (Ohio) University men’s hockey team in 2012 but resigned “under suspicion of unwanted touching of a male adult,” the university’s general counsel told a Michigan police officer in 2013, according to Michigan police documents obtained by the Sun-Times. Miami University recently hired a third-party firm to investigate Aldrich’s time at the school, per numerous reports.
Aldrich later became a volunteer coach with the Houghton (Michigan) High School men’s hockey team. He pleaded guilty in December 2013 — and was sentenced in February 2014 to nine months in prison and five years of probation — for a criminal sexual-contact incident with a 16- to 18-year-old member of the team.
The victim of that assault told police in September 2013 that Aldrich — after a team party — climbed into bed with, sexually touched and performed oral sex on the victim and forced the victim to also sexually touch Aldrich, despite the victim’s frequent objections, according to Michigan police documents.
The victim of that assault filed a separate lawsuit against the Hawks on May 26 in Cook County Circuit Court, alleging the Hawks “provided positive references to future employers” of Aldrich. The Hawks requested a time extension in that case Wednesday, according to court records.
Even after Michigan police began investigating Aldrich’s assault of the high school student in September 2013, Hawks head of human resources Marie Sutera told police the Hawks would require “a search warrant or subpoena to give out any information” about Aldrich’s tenure, according to Michigan police documents.
Bowman, MacIsaac, Gary and Sutera are all still employed by the Hawks. Vincent now works as a volunteer assistant coach at Dartmouth University and did not immediately return a request for comment.
Shemuel Sanders suffered a tragic loss last June when his daughter, Shemilah, became the victim of a fatal shooting in their hometown of Decatur, Illinois.
Sanders, who often served as an informal mentor to youth in the Decatur middle school where he works, felt compelled, now more than ever, to do more.
“I never want another parent to have to feel what I’m feeling,” says Sanders, who does landscaping work during the summers, “so I started small — pulling a few young men into my landscaping work and paying them for their time.”
Once the community heard about what Sanders was doing, his phone wouldn’t stop ringing with calls from parents and young men who wanted to be involved.
In just a few weeks, his landscaping program, which started with 10 young men, quickly grew to 70 — the maximum number of participants that donations to the program could support.
When they returned to school in the fall, Sanders refocused his outreach on helping the men navigate e-learning, recruiting a team of retired teachers who volunteered their time to help students who were struggling outside of a traditional school setting.
Provided photo.
This year, the program has grown to include 200 young men and women and many more offerings for the youth, who can now learn forensic science taught by the local police department, take music or dance classes, and of course, continue to participate in the popular landscaping program.
The only limitation to the growth of the program is funding, and Sanders continues to fundraise to be able to support more participants.
“I’ve had to turn youth away, and that kills me,” says Sanders. “I believe I could easily reach 1000 youth with the community’s support – there is that much need for this work.”
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Provided photo.