The man who shot three Palestinian students in Burlington, Vt., including one from Haverford College, during the 2023 Thanksgiving weekend was convicted on three counts of second-degree attempted murder Monday.
The students, who’d known each other since grade school in the West Bank, were together for the holiday. They had been walking along a street near the University of Vermont when a man confronted them with a handgun and fired at least four rounds before running away, according to police.
That man was later identified as Jason Eaton, 51, who did not dispute that he shot Hisham Awartani, Tahseen Aliahmad, and Kinnan Abdalhamid that Saturday evening.
His attorneys, however, argued he was not guilty by reason of insanity, presenting testimony that Eaton was suffering from a delusional, psychotic disorder after having lost his job two weeks before the shooting.
Eaton believed he was receiving messages from the CIA ordering him to “go out and shoot somebody,” said his attorneys.
Abdalhamid, the Haverford student, suffered non-life-threatening injuries; Trinity College student Aliahmad was shot in the chest; and Awartani, a Brown University student, was paralyzed from the waist down as a result of his injuries.
Haverford College student Kinnan Abdalhamid, one of the three Palestinian American men who were shot in Vermont in 2023.Charles Fox / Staff Photographer
The case garnered national attention because of the rising tensions around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the continuing fallout of the Oct. 7 attacks close to two months prior. All three students were of Palestinian descent, speaking Arabic, and two were wearing keffiyehs at the time of the attack, according to police.
Abdalhamid, who was 20 at the time, returned to campus weeks later, calling on school leaders to join him in calling for a ceasefire.
“I’ve gotten more than enough support as an individual,” Abdalhamid said in December 2023. “I’m advocating for the school to back a ceasefire.”
The parents of the victims and groups including the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee asked that the attack be investigated as a hate crime, though prosecutors could not support the charges.
The Chittenden County State’s Attorney Office is seeking a life sentence for Eaton.
The Philadelphia police officer who left a 48-year-old man lying on the ground in an Olney bike lane, leaving him to be killed in a hit-and-run minutes later, has been suspended and is slated to be fired.
Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel made the announcement Monday, noting he felt “disgusted” over how the officer responded to the man, identified as Eugene Beauford.
“We don’t know what Mr. Beauford was suffering from,” Bethel said. “He could have had a medical condition that we just were not aware of. He could have had a mental condition that we were not aware.”
Bethel said the officer had a duty to determine what issues Beauford was dealing with and render aid, which he did not do. Police have not publicly identified the officer, who was assigned to the 35th District and has two years on the force, as separate investigations into his response and the hit-and-run continue.
Beauford was seen walking down the 5500 block of Rising Sun Avenue with an “unsteady gait” at around 1:40 a.m. on Aug. 27, according to police. Video shows the officer pulling his patrol car next to Beauford and engaging with him. It’s during this time that Beauford fell, lying across the bike lane and traffic lane. The officer got out of his vehicle to talk to Beauford some more, but then left him on the road.
Minutes later, police say, a car stopped right before reaching Beauford, but another car tried to circumvent the vehicle by going into the bike lane and ended up hitting Beauford, who would die later that morning.
Police said they were able to identify the person who hit Beauford but no charges have been filed as the investigation continues. Once the investigation is complete, it will be up to the District Attorney’s Office to levy charges.
The incident drew condemnation from the department’s top brass. The officer who left Beauford on the road was the first from the department back on the scene after the hit-and-run was reported. He did not file the proper paperwork and did not render aid, according to police.
Bethel would not speak as to whether the department thinks the officer attempted to “cover up” his actions, but he did say the officer violated a number of policies, including how police classify such an incident.
The officer did speak to investigators about the case, though Bethel declined to expand on what was said.
“What I could tell you is that what he did share did not move the needle in my decision,” he said.
On the outer rim of a Home Depot parking lot in West Berlin, N.J., a group of more than 20 people — many of them senior citizens — did their part to fight Big Brother in the searing August sun.
“It got your license plate number!” shouted one man, pointing to a black, Flock brand solar-powered license plate reader above him and then to various cars in an Oprah-like manner, albeit at a slower clip. “They’re watching you! And You!”
The camera also captured the make, model, and any bumper stickers on passing vehicles going through the shopping plaza’s main entry and exit point, whether they went to Home Depot or not, someone else rattled off. Not to mention all the police-operated license plate readers dotting the region.
Waiting for the light to turn, one driver clearly isn’t buying the “surveillance state” claims. He tells the organizers their phones are already listening, lifting his for emphasis, and flipping them the bird as the line of cars begins to move again.
Michael Cannon, 72, understands that response, but insists these cameras are different.
“This is the freedom to travel,” he said over honks of support. “I can leave my phone at home. I don’t have to shop at Amazon. I don’t have to surf the internet. I choose to use them and I realize I’m giving up some privacy.”
It’s not just that Flock cameras can capture a vehicle’s license and other details, critics say. That information goes into a much-touted national database, which is fed by hundreds of local police departments in every state but Alaska. What’s more, Flock is not the only player in the market.
Automated license plate readers from Motorola Solutions, Axon, Avigilon, Neology, Leonardo, and Genetec are already peppered across the Jersey Shore, the Cherry Hill Mall, and shopping plazas across New Jersey. Major retailers including Lowe’s, Walmart, and Ulta Beauty have embraced the technology, citing loss prevention and employee safety as the driving force. And a majority of New Jersey’s law enforcement agencies have been using the technology since at least 2023, with a $10 million funding boost from then-Gov. Phil Murphy.
The “surveillance state,” say the technology’s harshest critics, is already here and rapidly expanding with a patchwork of regulations people are only now beginning to understand.
But at the Home Depot, Adam Sheridan tried to convince passing drivers it doesn’t have to be this way.
Sheridan is an organizer with the nascent group DeFlock South Jersey, which formed over the summer as the technology was subject to a flurry of investigative pieces, from local outlets like NJ.com to national publications including the New York Times. The South Jersey group is part of an effort to regulate and limit the growing assortment of automatic license plate readers. Everyday people are filing records requests, planning boycotts of retailers using the technology, and courting elected officials across the political spectrum, urging them to introduce bills regulating the technology.
“We’re trying to educate people,” Sheridan said of the group’s efforts. “They don’t know that this surveillance system is being built without their knowledge or their consent and we have found that when you tell people, they don’t like it.”
Progressives like Sheridan see the collective concern and outrage as a boon to their cause.
“There really is a lot of alignment between very vastly different people and that’s unusual,” he said. “We can go and talk to a Republican legislator and say your voters care about this and then we can go to a Democratic politician and say the same thing.”
Adam Sheridan, an organizer with the new DeFlock South Jersey, alerts passing drivers to an organizing meeting in August where people hope to spread awareness regarding automated license plate readers. Flocky, a homemade mascot, acts as a visual boost.Ximena Conde
High-profile cases of abuse
One of the reasons Flock has received the brunt of criticism in the license plate reader backlash is because of a number of incidents where the technology was abused or misused.
Then there are the legal concerns, including whether the technology can help authorities circumvent the laws of neighboring states. Tech outlet 404 Media reported that police in Texas used Flock to track a woman who left the state to self-administer an abortion. While Texas prohibits almost all abortions, police were able to tap into Flock data in states where abortion is legal because of that national network.
The quandaries are not limited to Flock.
Immigration enforcement is another area where policies and safeguards can change from camera provider, to state, to police department, to private business.
Flock says it does not contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but clients in states like New York have allegedly used license plate reader data on ICE’s behalf.
For its part, New Jersey limits how state and local law enforcement assist immigration authorities and Flock says it has its own guardrails, requiring out-of-state agencies to confirm that they’ll comply with state law before receiving license plate data. Yet retailers set their own policies on when data can be shared with local and federal law enforcement.
People like Sheridan, someone who organizes for progressive causes in South Jersey, worry about the use of the technology under the current political climate. Even so, he’s encouraged by the criticism the technology has received across the political spectrum.
“We think that people on the right should also be concerned about it because Donald Trump won’t be the president forever,” he said. “There will be a Democratic president, and we don’t think that that president should have these powers either.”
Privacy advocates also urge critics to look beyond Flock and consider how license plate reader technology is being used by other companies and paired with other surveillance tools.
Motorola Solutions didn’t respond to a list of questions, but the American Civil Liberties Union reports it also offers a searchable national database of vehicle information captured by its cameras.
And Leonardo, as first reported in 404 Media, is rolling out sensors to their license plate readers that would capture “unique identifiers” of phones and other Bluetooth-enabled devices in cars. The company said in a statement that this is a separate product that can be paired with their license plate readers and all that information is kept in the end users’ own database.
Critics concede this is all a lot to take in. Yet they hope to tap into the sudden interest in license plate readers and replicate some of the data center bans in New Jersey. Though license plate readers are already ubiquitous, privacy advocates believe a mass mobilization could push for regulation.
A technology used statewide
License plate readers have been around for a long time.
In New Jersey, the Office of Attorney General has led efforts to regulate the technology since at least 2010. The latest tweaks to regulation came out of the office in 2022, mandating annual audits of law enforcement agencies using the technology; requiring license plate reader coordinators to improve oversight and information sharing; and cutting the time these departments can keep data and records from cameras from five to three years.
By the time the first statewide audit was published in 2024, 517 law enforcement agencies were already using the technology, including the New Jersey State Police, NJ Transit Police Department, and various county prosecutor’s offices. The latest report auditing the use of the technology, found 523 law enforcement agencies are using license plate readers. There areabout 530 law enforcement agencies in the state, according to NJ.com.
And while agencies are told to report significant violations and citizen complaints — there were none listed for 2025 — information regarding how many cameras agencies have or how often they’ve been used in investigations is not provided.
Much of what’s known about license plate readers is coming from the companies themselves, with many of the service providers remaining rather tight-lipped.
In its more recent “impact census,” Flock reported its technology supported more than 1 million criminal investigations in 2025 across 700 law enforcement agencies nationwide, helping locate more than 10,000 missing persons. The company also claims more than 40% of its customers used Flock in more than half the cases that resulted in the recovery of a stolen car.
The Cherry Hill Police Department, however, is careful to not to overemphasize the technology’s role in solving crimes.
“In nearly every case where a reader mattered, it gave detectives a direction and the case was then built by corroborating that lead through other evidence: video, physical evidence, witness accounts, forensics,” said the department’s Capt. Sheldon Bryant.
A reader can offer a lead, he said, but proving the crime is still up to law enforcement.
The department has contracted with Flock for the last two years. Bryant highlighted several instances where the township’s 10 readers identified vehicles connected to crimes committed in and out of the township, which led to arrests.
A shooting investigation in Camden last January led authorities to a vehicle in Cherry Hill and just last month, a shooting in Cherry Hill led authorities to New York, according to the department. Cherry Hill Police obtained a warrant in the latter incident and a Flock reader picked up the vehicle’s license plate in New York, leading to an arrest.
In the last year, Cherry Hill’s system generated 2.2 million alerts, the overwhelming majority being expired registration and suspended plates — the department doesn’t use the readers to run enforcement sweeps on those. The alerts connected to criminal activity are far smaller, Bryant said. In the same year the department received alerts for about 800 stolen plates, 212 stolen vehicles, and 15 missing persons.
Many critics of license plate readers argue more granular data from individual law enforcement agencies on how they use the technology would aid in transparency.
How many people are being recorded to try to capture a select few, they ask. An oft-quoted statistic from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has been studying new surveillance technology for more than 30 years, noted that less than 1% of cars scanned are connected to a crime, but that’s from research looking at data from 2016 and 2017.
At the inaugural DeFlock South Jersey organizing meeting, this statistic drew denouncements from the crowd.
“I know there’s some benefits but it’s not up to us to prove we didn’t commit a crime,” said a Howell Township resident named Joe afterward. He’s a registered Republican who declined to give his last name to preserve his privacy — a common stance among the group. “I’m driving past these all the time, I shouldn’t be surveilled in case something happens.”
Fighting the warrant loophole
Consider this: Police want to stick a GPS tracker on a suspect’s car. Law enforcement would have to get a judge to sign off on a warrant in order to do so and they would only be able to track an individual’s movements going forward.
Matthew Guariglia, a senior policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said license plate reader technology inverts that system by collecting sensitive data all the time.
“Not only is it like skipping the judge, it’s skipping the judge and going back in time and putting a GPS device on a car 30 days ago,” Guariglia said.
The amount of time license plate readers keep that information varies by company and law enforcement agency. Amid backlash, Flock cut its retention period last month from 30 to seven days. Critics looking for greater regulation feel retention should be uniform across companies and shorter still.
One of the many tactics DeFlock South Jersey aims to take is pushing legislation that forces agencies to delete captured data after 48 hours unless it is needed as evidence. The suggested bill language promoted by the ACLU, also requires other law enforcement agencies to request access to license plate data collected by another entity. The asking agency would have to agree not to further share the data, unless required by law, or have a warrant.
Republican Sen. Michael Testa (Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland) plans to introduce legislation for license plate reader guardrails this month, though the text has yet to become available.
“The legislation that I will be introducing will establish commonsense protections for law-abiding citizens while still allowing law enforcement to use this technology to catch dangerous criminals,” he said in July.
Back at the organizing meeting, held at the South County Library in Winslow, attendees looked over drafts of the suggested legislation and headed to DeFlock.org — not affiliated with DeFlock South Jersey. The website is an open-source project that flips the script on license plate readers. Volunteers submit the locations of cameras across the country, regardless of brand, despite the name.
Many in the room were already acquainted with the app, having sent in tips themselves. Sheridan floated the idea of a license plate reader “scavenger hunt” as a potential event to raise awareness. Boycotting retailers that use the cameras was also floated as an idea.
Joe, the Republican attendee from Howell, doesn’t mind the cameras on private businesses. Still, as Sheridan hoped, Joe left the meeting ready to take action. He’s stayed in touch with DeFlock South Jersey in the weeks since and they’re coordinating a possible meeting in Howell, Sheridan said.
Despite the technology’s ubiquity in South Jersey, Sheridan feels regulation is within reach because people like Joe are joining the fight.
“Not to be corny about it but this is an American value,” said Sheridan. “The ‘don’t tread on me’ stuff is sort of in our DNA as Americans, the government doesn’t get to watch me everywhere I go.”
By the time state and local law enforcement in Northumberland County, Pa.,connected a device stealing people’s food assistance benefits from a 7-Eleven to Patricia Bogdan and George Lazar, the pair had already fled to New Jersey.
Authorities allege Bogdan and Lazar placed the contraption on a point-of-sale terminal in February, which went undiscovered for days. Bogdan and Lazar then allegedly retrieved the stolen electronic benefit transfer card data in a process known as skimming and spent people’s benefits at BJ’s and Sam’s Club locations in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Authorities would later learn Bogdan had multiple aliases and fake passports, while Lazar had a warrant out for an attempted murder charge in Belgium.
“It illustrates how quickly they’re moving, the type of individuals that are involved in this, and just their ability to get in and out, that makes these really complex cases,” said State Inspector General Michelle Henry, whose office investigates EBT thefts in Pennsylvania.
With the help of authorities in New Jersey and North Carolina, Henry’s office was able to find Bogdan and Lazar in March and later bring them back to Pennsylvania, where the cases are ongoing. A small win in what victim advocates argue has risen to a nationwide crisis because the federal government has failed to invest in more secure card technology. The magnetic strips on the cards are too easy to exploit.
Still, a seismic disruption to these scam operations is slated to come to Pennsylvania before Jan. 1, 2028.
The latest state budget appropriated $7 million in funds that would pay for chip-enabled EBT cards, giving the outdated magnetic stripe technology, which the federal government required states to use until 2024, a sorely needed upgrade.
The chip cards are not invulnerable to scammers but exploiting them requires more sophisticated technology, according to the Secret Service. Early adopters of the chip technology, such as California and Alabama, have reported significant drops in thefts already.
To the victims of this sort of fraud, scarred by the memories of an unexpected zero balance while trying to pay for groceries, the change is long overdue. There are countless stories of families learning about how the scam works and having to scrape meals together with the aid of food pantries.Benefits were reimbursed between October 2022 and December 2024, but that ended when Congress did not extend funding.
For now, law enforcement in Pennsylvania continues to confiscate skimming devices and prosecute perpetrators, even when it can feel like a high-stakes game of whack-a-mole, while preparing for the next iteration of scammers.
An ever-evolving scheme that knows no borders
Much of the skimming scam — from recruiting to reselling the goods purchased with EBT data— happens online through the dark web and social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.
Transnational criminals, more recently from Eastern European countries, will send already assembled skimmers to partners stateside or provide instructions on how they can piece together the devices themselves. The local partners stick the contraptions onto a point-of-sale machine, steal data, and use the stolen benefits to purchase high-ticket items such as baby formula, which is then offloaded by word of mouth or on social media networks like Facebook and Instagram.
Michael Ross, special agent in charge of the Philadelphia field office for the United States Secret Service, said the advent of Bluetooth technology has made it much harder to catch people in the act since they can digitally collect the stolen data, instead of taking back the physical machine where police might be waiting for them.
Combating these crimes requires a multipronged approach, from the use of digital forensics to old-school public awareness efforts.
“We will send out a small group, not necessarily a formal task force, with state and local law enforcement representatives, and we will go to businesses,” Ross said. “We will go in, we’ll educate, we’ll show what some of these devices look like, things that can be done to make sure that the EBT fraud is mitigated.”
Various states have responded in a similar fashion, educating businesses and placing the onus of protecting food assistance benefits on recipients, who are encouraged to download apps on their phones that allow them to lock their cards until they’re ready to pay for groceries.
Still, Pennsylvania has aimed to be more aggressive in its fight against skimming.
The Office of State Inspector General piloted “Skimmer Response Teams” last year. Since its inception, the six- to eight-person group that works with the broader office on cases, seized more than 55 of these devices before scammers could come back and drain more than $20.5 million in benefits from more than 40,000 accounts.
Despite these strides in prevention, the state reported more than 5,100 skimming incidents that accounted for more than $2.5 million in stolen food assistance benefits in the first five months of the year.
It’s one of the reasons the task force pilot is now permanent and is expected to stay even as the EBT cards switch to chips.
“In my experience as a longtime prosecutor, anything that makes it more difficult to complete the crime is a deterrent,” said Henry. “If it’s super easy, you’re going to have more of it.”
And Pennsylvania wants to make stealing people’s food assistance benefits as difficult as possible.
Six South Jersey gas stations that the White House promoted in July, touting below-market fuel prices, have racked up environmental violations with the state dating back to 2023.
The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection issued close to $430,000 in fines in May to operators who run 17 gas stations, including the six Freedom Fuel locations, for the violations accrued over the years, according to an administrative order first reported by Politico and obtained by The Inquirer. The fines were issued before these stations rebranded to Freedom Fuel.
The Freedom Fuel stations, which made their debut this summer, accrued more than $202,000 in fines, according to department records. All 17 stations are owned by asset manager Blue Owl Capital and operated by Cherry Hill developer Shamikh Kazmi and his brother Syed Kazmi.
Blue Owl and the Kazmi brothers could not be reached for comment.
The owner-operators have requested a hearing, according to DEP spokesperson Larry Hajna, but no date had been set as of Wednesday.
The violations include failing to properly register underground storage tanks, failing to provide overfill prevention for some tanks, failing to cut and cap lines that lead to out-of-service tank systems, and violating delivery bans.
A Freedom Fuel location at 6801 Tilton Rd. in Egg Harbor was issued a fine of $50,000, the maximum penalty for the violation. The location received four deliveries in November 2023, despite having been banned from doing so because it did not properly register its storage tank.
In its justification for the fine, the department described the operator’s actions as a “deliberate and knowing act,” noting it was a major violation.
The Kazmi brothers have been embroiled in at least two lawsuits related to previous gas station ventures, including a 2021 trademark dispute with BP American Inc. and BP Products North America Inc. Additionally, Petroleum Marketing Group Inc., a fuel distribution company, accused the brothers of stealing thousands of gallons of gas from the company.
City won’t shut down Philly Freedom Fuel station
The Freedom Fuel station on Bustleton Ave. in Philadelphia.Dana Munro / staff
The network’s Bustleton Avenue station — also linked to the Kazmi brothers — failed a license renewal inspection at the end of July that could have forced its closure. But the owners remedied the issue and can continue to operate the station, according to a city spokesperson.
More than two months after having been loudly promoted by the White House and PresidentDonald Trump, Freedom Fuel’s owners have remained silent about their discount gas operation.
Baltimore Ravens assistant coach Randy Brown and former commodities trader Yoni Gontownik signed the company’s certificate of formation in Delaware and have not spoken publicly about the highly touted enterprise.
Freedom Fuel launched with prices 40 to 50 cents a gallon cheaper than nearby stations, frustrating competitors and confusing experts who follow the notoriously low-margin business.
“With every new site, we’re driving down gas prices at the pump for more communities,” reads a message on the network’s website.
In recent weeks, prices across Freedom Fuel locations have risen closer to other discount locations.
Take the location on Dreshertown Road in Upper Dublin Township, which was promoted in a video shared by the White House. When it launched at the beginning of July, the station sold gas for $3.47 a gallon — a nod to Trump being the 47th president. But as of Tuesday, the station was selling gas for $3.89 a gallon, about a dime cheaper than a nearby Citgo station and slightly more than Sam’s Club, according to gas-tracking website GasBuddy.
The average cost of a gallon of gas in Philadelphia on Tuesday was $4.15, according to AAA. That was up more than 28% from this time last year, when the cost averaged $3.23.
Michella Crosby first noticed it a couple of years ago: The children surrounding her block in West Philadelphia were hungry — and a little bored — during the summer break.
Once a kid in need of a meal, often getting one at her local armory, Crosby decided to do something to make sure no child went unfed.
The 74-year-old block captain signed up to run a Playstreet last summer. Through the city-run Playstreets program, and with the support of neighbors, she closed off her block to traffic on weekdays and distributed free, nutritious lunches to children, no questions asked.
“This is survival,” Crosby said in her second summer running a Playstreet. “We have to live. We have to be able to take care of our children.”
Crosby is just one part of the more than 500 churches, camps, schools, recreation centers, and Playstreets in Philadelphia that offer children under 18 opportunities to do everything from crafting to sports and unstructured play during the summer. These sites have the added benefit of feeding children for free.
The meals were paid for through the Summer Food Service Program, a federal program with funds administered by Pennsylvania.
Providing children with a free, federally approved breakfast and lunch is a benefit many families only speak about in whispers, according to program operators. At many sites, all children are handed meals, even if they don’t need them or come with their own snacks. Coordinators say this method of meal distribution makes it so no one feels less-than for lining up during breakfast or lunch.
This summer, the city was projected to distribute more than a million meals. A final count of meal sites will not be available until the end of the year, according to the city.
The Inquirer visited several of these meal sites to get a glimpse of the many purposes these hubs serve and the people who make it all possible.
Holy Innocents School summer camp
The gymnasium is abuzz on a Tuesday with approximately 70 children ages 4 to 14.
The pre-K children are the first to boldly rush the plastic folding table featuring a spread of small cardboard boxes topped with pints of milk.
“There’s a line behind you,” an instructor gently reminds a little boy skipping past his classmates.
The child spins around, offering a sheepish grin, and joins the friends he had zoomed past, giggling with glee.
Almost every child in the room attends Holy Innocents School during the school year, said Dee D’Aulerio, director of the free all-day summer camp in Juniata Park.
A calendar of the meals made by Nutrition Development Services for about 150 kids at Holy Innocents Catholic Church in Philadelphia, Pa., on Tuesday, July 28, 2026.Tyger Williams / Staff Photographer
“Historically, they did have to pay a fee, but now that we’re free, it really eases the burden on the families who pay tuition to take something off their plate,” she said.
In rapid succession, D’Aulerio personally hands every child a box that includes a ham and cheese sandwich, celery sticks, and potato salad.
Most look past the celery, donating their untouched containers to the “share table,” where a milk crate is already overflowing with applesauce containers.
One of the middle school boys walks up to the share box and grabs a handful of sandwiches. He tosses one to a friend and keeps the rest.
“The kids can help themselves if they’re still hungry after eating; they’re also able to take things home with them, too,” no questions asked, D’Aulerio said. “That’s a big help, especially if there are multiple children in the family.”
100 block of Dewey Street
Michella Crosby won’t admit it, but she is kind of the linchpin of her block, according to her neighbors.
She had been block captain for a decade and a member of the nonprofit ACHIEVEability, which aims to break the “generational cycle of poverty,” for 16 years. She is the person neighbors go to for help applying to city programs that can lower their tax bills.
Michella Crosby waits for children to stop by mid-August to pick up a free meal.Ximena Conde
Last year, she started to tackle hunger in the neighborhood.
Two children run up to Crosby’s house around 2 p.m. on a Friday, cracking open a blue cooler full of chocolate milk and apple juice. They are not from the 100 block of North Dewey Street, but they are near-daily visitors.
“Got something to eat?” the boy asks, knowing the answer is yes.
“I want two juices!” the girl says, pointing at a doll she is swinging around. “It’s for the baby.”
“I got your applesauce,” Crosby says to the boy as he inspects the ham sandwich lunch. The boy is in a picky eating stage, Crosby notes.
There were no Playstreets when she was coming up, so Crosby would head to the local armory. She only wishes she could do more for the modern-day latchkey kids who live in neighboring blocks. This summer, she has gotten faint knocks on the weekend of kids asking for food. Playstreets, however, only runs during the week.
“As much as I would love to, I can’t give away my refrigerator,” she said, as a neighbor greets her from across the street.
Still, she considers this summer a success, grateful that children feel safe enough to come to her for food and a chat. Their continued presence has persuaded her to continue the program.
“As long as there’s a need for children to be fed, I’m going to do it,” she said.
Kingdom Restoration Ministries
Eight children were already digging into crispy grilled cheese sandwiches, fried chicken, corn, and fruit cups when Peace McClain, 35, walked into Kingdom Restoration Ministries in Olney with two of his own.
A lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches and fried chicken is served at Kingdom Restoration Ministries in late July.Ximena Conde
McClain keeps his kids busy with beach trips and other activities during the summer breaks, but worries they are missing out on an experience he remembers fondly: hanging out with friends freely on his block.
“I remember summertime, going outside, and going to get free lunch from the block captain,” McClain said.
Still, safety concerns keep McClain from letting his children too far out of his sight.
The half-day camp he saw advertised on utility poles across the neighborhood felt like a good compromise.
“I wanted to give them the experience to come in and meet these people because they don’t get to walk around,” McClain said.
Velvet Howard gets ready to serve a lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches and fried chicken at Kingdom Restoration Ministries.Ximena Conde
Velvet Howard, 70, who is officially retired but is thecamp supervisor for the summer, tells McClain how the camp works.
In its first year, the camp offers half-day summer programming for children on Tuesdays and Wednesdays with breakfast and lunch included — all free. No preregistration is required, so the number of children in attendance fluctuates based on families’ summer plans. And while many of the children in attendance have some connection with the church, it is not required.
(Left to right) Peace McClain picks up his children, Peace and Payton, from Kingdom Restoration Ministries in late July. The family was drawn by the possibility of having the children mingle safely with neighborhood kids their age, and the nutritious lunch was a bonus.Ximena Conde
Lunchtime is almost over by the time Howard finishes answering McClain’s questions, but she encourages Peace, 10, and Payton, 8, to stick around, grab a bite, and mingle with the time left.
“The staff was super nice here and it was really fun,” Payton said when reporting back to her father, noting she would come back. “And they had really good food.”
The intersection of food insecurity and summer childcare
More than 100,000 Philadelphia youth experience food insecurity, according to Laura Crandall, Philadelphia’s director of food security initiatives. In addition, close to 87,000 children under 18 live below the poverty line, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
An estimated 45,000 SNAP recipients in Philadelphia could see benefits cut this year, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services.
As the social safety net tightens for families, summer camp enrollment has only grown more competitive.
“Prior to the pandemic, we were already seeing that the options for families during the summer was decreasing,” said Erinn Hill, director of child nutrition programs for Catholic Charities of Philadelphia’s Nutritional Development Services, which sponsored 192 meal sites in the city this summer.
“Camps and other programs were getting smaller, shorter, or closing. As of now, the number of sites is still not back to pre-pandemic levels.”
The nonprofit CBS Food Program, which provides meals to Kingdom Restoration Ministries, responded to the mounting interest by delivering food to 41 partner locations in Philadelphia, close to double the number of sites it worked with last summer.
Even so, some city partners worry food insecurity is only spreading amid the rising cost of groceries.
At least two site operators, who asked not to be named to avoid getting in trouble, said seniors in their communities are increasingly coming to summer meal sites for food, which they are supposed to save for kids. In areas where the kids do not want the meals, operators will sometimes look the other way and let seniors take the leftovers.
“We just can’t let our neighbors go hungry,” one site operator said.
A South Philadelphia babysitter, originally from Argentina, was released from ICE detention Monday after being arrested at Philadelphia International Airport last month.
Iliana Lick’s arrest made national headlines as the Trump administration steps up efforts to increase immigration enforcement at American airports.
Lick, 30, had been in Philadelphia since September 2024. She had a valid work authorization and a pending asylum application, but had overstayed her visa, according to the Department of Homeland Security. She was arrested as she headed to Kansas City to watch Argentina play in the World Cup, transported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to Louisiana, Texas, and New Mexico instead.
“After nearly a month in custody, countless phone calls, legal proceedings, and several transfers across different states, this is a moment we have been praying and hoping for,” her boyfriend, Steven Melchiorre, 35, wrote in an update to supporters on Facebook and a GoFundMe page that has raised more than $18,000 for legal fees.
Though Lick’s release is a victory, the fight to stay in the country is far from over.
As a condition of her release on $10,000 bond, Lick had to surrender her passport and has to wear an ankle monitor.
Immigration advocates keeping track of those being arrested at the Philadelphia airport have said at least 10 people have been detained since mid-July. Of those, Lick is only the second to be released from custody.
Immigration advocate Vivian Chang, executive director of Asian Americans United, said the release of people arrested by ICE, whether at airports or during immigration check-ins, can be a crapshoot.
“You need like a CNN story and so many news articles, so much fundraising, all of that,” Chang said. “The vast majority of people can’t access that. They don’t get coverage, and that’s what the Trump administration is counting on.”
The Inquirer wrote about Lick’s case, and her story was most recently featured on CNN.
For its part, the Department of Homeland Security has said it is making sure undocumented immigrants are flying only to self-deport, offering them a $2,600 payment and a free flight home as an alternative to detention.
A New York Times report found instances of immigration arrests in at least 15 airports, with many of the cases getting follow-ups in local media markets.
Britni Zahodnick, who with her husband, Zane Schultz, has employed Lick as a babysitter for their two young children, ages 4 and 1, for more than a year, said she is grateful for the media attention.
When Zahodnick first learned of the arrest, she said, she was not seeing people talking about the issue on social media platforms. That changed in recent weeks.
In Philadelphia, people have rallied behind Lick, she said.
Donations have helped her to retain counsel, post bond, and pay fortransportation back to her South Philly home.
Zahodnick hopes attention to cases like Lick’s highlights how immigration enforcement is affecting people who have deep roots within their communities.
“A lot of the campaigning on this increased enforcement of immigration was really around criminals, and it just hasn’t panned out that way,” she said.
Hours before Mohamed Coulibaly was found dead in his Gloucester County home, one of his alleged victims said, the 23-year-old entrepreneur had been desperately seeking a $75,000 loan.
A recent Barron’s investigation alleged Coulibaly defrauded three former NFL players out of $1 million in an e-commerce scheme involving fake Shopify stores. Now others who invested in the venture or lent Coulibaly money were blowing up his phone. They wanted to know if Jalen Carter and several former members of the Eagles, including Nakobe Dean and Terrell Edmunds, were even real clients, a claim Coulibaly made on promotional materials.
Above all, these people wanted their money back.
The morning of his death, July 31, Coulibaly solicited money from a New York man, who agreed to speak with The Inquirer on the condition of anonymity to protect his family’s privacy. He is one of at least 10 people, including the three former NFL players, alleging Coulibaly scammed them out of more than $5 million through phony investments over the last year.
Coulibaly, who lived in Mullica Hill, a section of Harrison Township, promised to send a Lamborghini, two gold Rolexes, and a signed Lionel Messi cleat as collateral for what was to be a weeklong loan.
Coulibaly still owed the man $1 million for a bridge loan due in March. Yet he insisted the additional loan somehow would make it possible to return the initial money owed. His alleged victim said he figured he could only gain from the arrangement — if the collateral proved to be real.
But a driver — not in a Lamborghini — arrived at his doorstep with two fake watches, an unauthenticated signed cleat, along with an insurance card and a bill of sale for the promised luxe car, according to the man.
The man called off the loan.
“[Coulibaly] then started to cry hysterical on the phone,” the victim said. “He said, ‘I’ve lost it all, please help me here, please help me here.’”
Coulibaly was found dead later that day.
Mohamed Coulibaly attends Milan Fashion Week on Jan. 19 in Milan, Italy.Dave Benett/Getty Images
The Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office is leading the investigation into Coulibaly’s death and declined to comment. No charges have been filed in connection to the alleged scams Coulibaly is accused of spearheading.
Coulibaly’s death has only added a layer of uncertainty for his allegedly defrauded clients, who now believe they were unwitting participants in a Ponzi scheme. New so-called investments went toward paying off other clients. But the chain could not be sustained.
“In terms of his death, it sounds rather brash or harsh, but the only reason I’m upset for his passing is that he’s not able to go to jail and suffer,” the bridge loan investor said.
The Inquirer spoke with four victims, all but one of whom asked to remain anonymous citing lingering shame, privacy concerns, and, in one case, safety considerations. They provided alleged contracts Coulibaly gave them, text messages, screenshots of their purported Shopify store sales, and a whistleblower report sent to federal and Pennsylvania financial regulators.
In hindsight, the business always seemed too good to be true. The young entrepreneur convinced them they could rake in millions each month selling vacuums, printers, desktop humidifiers, and silicone trays on Shopify, an e-commerce platform similar to Amazon.
At first, investors said they had no reason to question Vent Motion LLC, also known as Motion Venture. Shopify alerted the victims to a steady stream of sales through their phone apps.
But at least two Shopify stores victims bought into were fake, full of transactions a Barron’s analysis suggests are also a sham. Shopify did not respond to requests for comment.
The alleged victims say Coulibaly lured them in by highlighting purported investor relationships with wealthy and connected people. His pitch deck listed several former members of the Eagles and the NBA as clients. Representatives for the current and former Eagles declined to comment or could not be reached.
“A selling point [Coulibaly] gave me was, ‘Hey, we only have about 90 to 100 people in this,’ insinuating you can make it behind the velvet rope because everybody involved is celebrities or athletes, and this is just a venture they do,” said another of the defrauded investors, requesting anonymity because family and friends do not know about the scam.
Yet as more victims have found one another in the wake of Coulibaly’s death, it has become clearer the scheme was not limited to targeting NFL players.
It involved everyday investors from Arizona, Pennsylvania, and New York who now want to know if any of it was real.
A ‘magnetic’ man with the digital footprint of a business phenom
Coulibaly knew how to sell the image of a successful entrepreneur.
His story always hit the same beats: Coulibaly was a professional soccer player. He made $4 million reselling rare sneakers before he turned 21. His success was largely attributed to “building connections” with athletes and influencers. Grinding was the key to success.
But much of that was embellished.
A database for American high school sports coverage noted Coulibaly played soccer for Roxborough High School.
Coulibaly said he began his professional career with the New York Red Bulls soccer team, but a spokesperson said Coulibaly never had a contract.
A friend from Coulibaly’s days at Temple University said the sneaker venture Heatkickcity was also a scam that swindled students out of thousands. He asked not to be named out of safety concerns, saying Coulibaly often touted relationships with gang-affiliated people.
While Coulibaly told publications he was born in Mali, West Africa, and immigrated to the United States at a young age, while in college, he often intimated that he was a trust fund child and that his parents worked for the French government, the Temple friend said.
He added that may have helped induce so many of their peers to pay a $1,200 membership for monthly access to rare sneakers that ultimately never came.
“He’d be like, ‘It’s stuck in shipping,’ or ‘my assistant forgot to order them,’ or ‘my assistant’s slacking,’ and then he would just keep on extending it, extending it,” said the friend. “If you questioned him in any way, shape, or form about the product that you paid for, then he would switch to angry mode.”
The friend eventually got his money back after pressuring him for weeks but said Coulibaly continued his self-proclaimed pursuit of becoming a billionaire.
“He scammed his best friends,” the friend said. “Nobody was off-limits.”
Coulibaly’s next venture was fashion line Motion Apparelz. It was profiled in Forbes last year, where the author describes Coulibaly’s energy as “magnetic.” In the piece, Coulibaly name-drops artist friends, including rapper YG, who was later listed as an investor in Motion Venture promotional materials.
Rapper YG performs at the Coachella Music & Arts Festival in 2019.Amy Harris
YG’s agent could not be reached for comment.
Outside of the glowing profiles, a now-defunct Instagram account also detailed a lavish lifestyle full of run-ins with celebrities, boat jaunts on luxury yachts with city skylines in the background, and snapshots of Coulibaly in or in front of private planes. Often, Coulibaly could be seen wearing gold watches, what appear to be Van Cleef & Arpels bracelets, and diamond-studded chains.
Coulibaly’s digital footprint set the stage for an even bigger business pitch.
A business promising exorbitant returns
When it came to Vent Motion LLC, Coulibaly told clients he operated “factories in China and India with a combined team of 125 full-time employees,” according to a pitch deck he showed investors that was obtained by The Inquirer.
This allowed stores to operate without keeping any inventory and reducing overhead — a model known as drop-shipping.
The savings from eliminating the middlemen, he said, could then be reinvested into artificial intelligence-driven ads and “influencer amplification” to drum up more customers. Coulibaly’s company would set up and manage the Shopify stores on behalf of investors, pushing out additional advertising or swapping out products if sales slowed.
Clients would be charged a 20% to 25% service fee for that work, and even so, Coulibaly dangled extraordinary returns for those who joined the venture.
One Shopify store that began with a $550,000 investment in January 2024 had allegedly generated $2 million in revenue in April and a whopping $23 million in July of that year. By August, this particular store had generated a total of $84 million in revenue, according to the company’s unsubstantiated pitch deck.
Further sweetening the deal was an initial investment “protection” guarantee if their store did not generate profit within six months.
Former Arizona Cardinals General Manager Steve Keim says he was just as much of victim of Mohammed Coulibaly’s alleged scam.Darryl Webb
It’s what got Steve Keim, former general manager of the Arizona Cardinals, into the business.
Keim said he met Coulibaly through mutual Eagles acquaintances and by August 2025 he had bought his first Shopify store, which was recording sales at a pace that had him on track totriple his investment over six months. Keim bought into six more stores the following month, he said. His son and ex-wife would also buy into the business for at least a $1 million investment between all three.
Keim said he was soon offered the role of chief operating officer/chief growth officer, which he now sees as a way for Coulibaly to “legitimize his business.”
“I introduced him to people to sell stores to and that sort of thing,” said Keim, who describes fulfilling a figurehead role with no decision-making power. “He called me the COO but he also made promises to give me health insurance and to have some kind of bonus structure.”
The health insurance, bonuses, and exorbitant returns never materialized. Keim said he never had access to bank records and was never made aware of how many people gave money to Motion Venture. But by the start of the year, Keim claims, a flood of disgruntled investors were asking him for help getting their money back. Around this time, Keim said, he asked Coulibaly to stop using his name in promotional materials and told him he no longer wanted to be COO.
Keim contended he was as much of a victim as anyone else, holding onto hope that he could recover his money until Coulibaly’s death.
“This went downhill fast,” he said. “Not only did I get my name drug through the mud, I lost a lot of money since I was an investor.”
A Dubai deal
As more investors were demanding access to their Shopify funds in the fall, Coulibaly was telling them that the Dubai firm Middle East Venture Partners was interested in buying the operation for $215 million.
All they had to do was reach 175 online stores and meet other benchmarks by Aug. 1.
To back his claim Coulibaly produced a letter of intent dated Aug. 14, 2024.
Troubling for investors: The letter was dated more than a month before the company was registered in Pennsylvania.
The discrepancy was the biggest red flag for Barry Minkow, a convicted fraudster who now investigates scams on behalf of fraud victims. He started poking around the company at the start of the year for an investor who had put up $150,000.
“So here you are looking at a private equity company saying they’re going to buy up this company that doesn’t even exist for $200 million?” Minkow said in disbelief.
Middle East Venture Partners did not respond to an email to asking if a relationship existed with Coulibaly’s Vent Motion LLC.
With the permission of three of the alleged victims, Minkow submitted a 23-page whistleblower report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, FBI, and Pennsylvania Department of Banking and Securities. The report laid out victim accounts and flagged glaring issues with Motion Venture’s business model.
Minkow warned regulators in February thatintervention was essential to “halt ongoing solicitations, trace misallocated funds,” and stressed the importance of doing so “before the scheme inflicts further, irreparable harm.”
Minkow would prove to be right. Motion Venture was still actively recruiting new investors that month.
Picking up the pieces
Coulibaly’s college friend thinks he might have been one of the first victims of the Shopify sometime about three years ago. It involved less paperwork back then, more of a handshake deal. The friend put in $5,000 in a store with an investment protection promise in place, he said. Unlike that time in college, however, the friend only got half his money back.
The friendship with Coulibaly cooled after that.
“People just keep on saying he scammed NFL players,” said Coulibaly’s college friend. “No, anybody with money could be scammed, no matter how small.”
Coulibaly would insist money issues were the Dubai firm’s fault until his death, according to his alleged victims who shared screenshots and voice memos of conversations.
He ricocheted from distraught, lamenting the financial ruin that awaited him if he did not acquire more investors, to defiant, celebrating the Philadelphia 76ers’ LeBron James trade on X as he dodged investors.
When Keim and another investor flew into Philadelphia to meet with Coulibaly in late July, they spent a day and a half trying to figure out how much money was left, to no avail.
It was around that time that Coulibaly was soliciting the New York man for the $75,000 loan.
Coulibaly’s last post on X was a reshare a day before his death. “Trying to be everyone’s friend is a foolish behavior,” it read.
Whether any investor money remains is unclear. A now-defunct GoFundMe page put together by a man claiming to be Coulibaly’s brother raised more than $12,000 for the body’s “international transportation arrangements.”
Investors are also trying to figure out what legal recourse they might have, if any.
Coulibaly’s death has shattered any last remaining hope some victims had that a Dubai firm was to blame for cash-flow issues, and they are now seeking legal help.
It also left them feeling cheated one last time.
Staff writer Ryan W. Briggs contributed to this article.
South Philadelphia’s FDR Park now has its Welcome Center partially open to the public, with a public bathroom available for use and volunteers working an information desk seven days a week.
“Do you need help finding anything?” a chipper volunteer asked, sticking her head out of the information center entrance during the blistering heat wave in July.
The information desk is inside the Welcome Center and has been staffed since around late June, according to Philadelphia Parks and Recreation spokesperson Ra’Chelle Rogers. The restroom and information desk are open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays, with closing extended to 5 p.m. on weekends.
The air-conditioned respite from the heat showcases FDR’s programming, not limited to jazz in the park, community boating, and birding — all for free.
Friends of FDR Park, the nonprofit that advocates for the 348-acre space, is also selling houseplants, seeds native to the park, and crocheted flowers as fundraisers.
“FDR Park has always been a place that brings people together, and it’s rewarding to see the Welcome Center now offering the everyday amenities this community has long deserved — from public restrooms to visitor resources,” said Parks and Recreation Commissioner Susan Slawson, adding she was “grateful to everyone who stuck with us throughout this process.”
The newly repurposed FDR Park Welcome Center, located on the east side of the Pattison Lagoon near the Broad Street and Pattison Avenue entrance to the park pictured on Wednesday, June 11, 2025 in South Philadelphia. The space, originally built in 1919, was used as a guard house and stables in the past.Erin Blewett / For The Inquirer
The former guardhouse and horse stables that now make up the Welcome Center and abutting offices for park staff underwent a $12 million renovation in 2022 that was completed last summer. The renovated space integrated the original guardhouse and stables’ design and restored some of the windows, doors, glazed brickwork, and original hardware, according to the conservancy.
The Welcome Center will eventually feature a handful of food vendors, but Philadelphia Parks and Recreation has no timeline for that yet, as the city would have to seek requests for proposals, according to Rogers.
When fully operational, the Welcome Center will have 3,800 square feet of event space available that should be able to accommodate up to 200 guests for community meetings, according to the Fairmount Park Conservancy, which raised half the funds associated with the center’s renovation and is managing FDR’s larger once-in-a-generation overhaul. Additional bathrooms will eventually be available inside.
For now, park visitors can grab a seat outside the Welcome Center, where several bright orange tables overlook a field of wildflowers.
Park lovers willing to guide visitors can volunteer to help at the information desk through the Friends of FDR Park.
Even the Freedom Fuel Network promoted by President Donald Trump isn’t immune to rising gas prices.
Yet, the Philadelphia-area network of gas stations is expanding anyway, according to the company’s website.
The enterprise, currently made up of 25 stations spread across the region, garnered national attention earlier this month when it began selling regular gas for $3.47 a gallon — a nod to Trump, and 40 to 50 cents cheaper than other stations.
Gas station owners suddenly undercut, political observers, and government watchdogs wondered how long the promotion would continue.
It turns out, not long.
The Inquirer visited seven Freedom Fuel locations over several days, and while all were still selling gas cheaper than nearby competitors, the deep discounts from earlier were gone.
Gas prices are up everywhere, including the Freedom Fuel Network station on Edgemont Avenue in Brookhaven, Delaware County.Rob Tornoe /
Three Philadelphia gas stations and two Delaware County locations were among those within the network selling gas at $3.92 a gallon Monday. Near Philadelphia’s Freedom Fuel stations, competitors were charging $3.89 to $4.09 for a gallon of gas. The same was true in South Jersey, where Freedom Fuel stations in Marlton and West Berlin were selling gas around 10 cents a gallon less than their nearbycompetitors.
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Selling gasoline is a low-margin business, with owners making just “a few pennies” of profit per gallon sold, according to Eliezer Fich, a finance professor at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business.
“They can sustain those losses for a little while, but it becomes unsustainable if you can’t offset that with a convenience store or a car wash,” said Fich.
Several Freedom Fuel stations visited by Inquirer reporters were small, appeared somewhat rundown, and offered a limited selection of products beyond gas. One location had an inoperable convenience store.
Fich doesn’t know the specifics of Freedom Fuel. He said independent stations banding together can offer purchasing power with refineries, which can be one route to securing lower fuel costs. But those savings wouldn’t come close to supporting the deep discounts the stations were offering.
Despite the White House’s involvement in promoting Freedom Fuel, a spokesperson said the company received no government subsidies and did not obtain fuel at a lower cost. The below-market prices would exist “for as long as the company chooses,” the spokesperson said.
If that’s the case, the business itself was already absorbing dramatic losses before the United States resumed attacks on Iran, leading to a jump in gas prices over the past week.
The average cost of a gallon of fuel in Philadelphia was $4.17 a gallon Monday, up from $3.95 a gallon last week, according to AAA. Nationally, the average cost of a gallon of gas also jumped back to $4 a gallon, up from $3.14 a gallon compared to last year.
While questions remain, Freedom Fuel plans to expand
Little is known about who is taking on the likely losses expected from the promotion.
Former Evesham Township mayor, Baltimore Ravens assistant coach, and self-proclaimed “proud Trump supporter” Randy Brown, along with former commodities trader Yoni Gontownik, both signed the certificate of formation, first obtained by The Newsground, an investigative news outlet. Neither could be reached for comment.
Cherry Hill developer Shamikh Kazmi and his brother Syed Kazmi are linked to at least six locations. The brothers, who have been embroiled in at least two lawsuits related to previous gas station ventures, also could not be reached for comment.
One of Shamikh Kazmi’s businesses was sued as a result of a lengthy trademark dispute with BP America Inc. and BP Products North America Inc. in 2021. That case ended with four deputies with the U.S. Marshals Service seized remaining brand signs in June 2022, according to court documents.
Also in 2021, the brothers were accused by Petroleum Marketing Group Inc, a fuel distribution company, of stealing thousands of gallons of gas from the company. Petroleum Marketing Group sued the brothers, who were ordered by a federal judge in February to pay $600,000.
Still, the people behind Freedom Fuel are looking at expansion.
“Since launch, drivers have flooded us with one request: bring Freedom Fuel Network to my area,” read the website Monday. “We heard you. Due to overwhelming demand for additional locations, we’re expanding to serve more communities with lower prices at the pump.”
The website did not give a timeline for when those additional stations could come online and did not respond to a request for comment.
