Tag Archives: Lower Merion Police Department

murder in ardmore

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I woke up this morning to the news that somebody was stabbed to death within the shadow of the Lower Merion Township Building and Police Department early Saturday morning after some sort of bar fight on Cricket Avenue.

Philadelphia Inquirer: A man was killed in a Main Line stabbing authorities are calling a homicide

by Diane Mastrull
Published Jun 10, 2023

Michael Thomas Sides, 31, of Ardmore, was stabbed after an earlier “altercation” at a bar and pronounced dead at Lankenau Medical Center at 2:28 a.m. Saturday.

A 31-year-old Ardmore man was stabbed to death early Saturday morning in Lower Merion Township in what law enforcement officials are calling an apparent homicide….Indications are that the stabbing followed an earlier “altercation” in a nearby bar, authorities said. An investigation by county detectives and Lower Merion police continues, although the suspect appears to have been identified by them.

Authorities would not say whether that person was in custody. But a spokesperson for the District Attorney’s Office said in an email: “We are not looking for the suspect. But still looking for witnesses.”

It’s also pretty close to a cute little street where friends live and have for decades. Fox29 News remarked that there are lots of shops and apartments, but also right there are plenty of single family homes.


Bar fight leads to fatal stabbing of 31-year-old man in Montgomery County, officials say

By FOX 29 Staff and Cheyenne Corin

LOWER MERION TWP., Pa. – A deadly stabbing outside a Lower Merion bar has stunned the quiet town on the Main Line. Police say they do know who they are looking for.

Officers responded to the intersection of Cricket Avenue and Cricket Terrace in Lower Merion to find a 31-year-old man suffering from stab wounds around 1:30 a.m. Saturday.

The victim, identified as Michael Thomas Sides, was pronounced shortly after at a local hospital….The owner of Jack McShea’s told FOX 29 Sides was one of his employees. He was too upset to go on camera, but says Sides was like family and a beautiful person who worked there for years.

I was amused by someone interviewed by Fox29 who proclaimed it was the Main Line and these things don’t happen there. I am paraphrasing, but that’s the gist of it.

Murder happens everywhere, and it happens in Ardmore although not often thank goodness . In 2021 there was the botched ghost gun murder. 2002 was a horrible murder suicide, in Ardmore. In 2019 the man who murdered a woman in her Ardmore apartment was sentenced. Again it doesn’t happen a great deal, but murder does happen in the magic kingdom of Lower Merion.

The murder happened where there are so many windows of so many apartments in that hideous apartment building that used to be a parking lot that backed up to what used to be the movie theater. It looks like it started in that John Henry’s Pub that used to be Annie’s years ago? My educated guess there comes from the fact that FOX 29 featured that bar it in a shot of their news report.

My sources around town were told that it must have started as a beef over at that bar and perhaps whomever did it went looking for the murder victim where he worked and then they met up at that intersection, is this true? Someone else said, both the victim and the alleged perpetrator live in Ardmore? (And so LMPD doesn’t get their parties in a bunch, I don’t have any inside information, but one thing about downtown Ardmore is it is a community and people talk, and people are talking about this.)

The psychology of committing a murder is something that you can’t help but just wonder about. And why do I say that? Simple. We all get mad at people, but what is it that causes someone to take another person’s life? What disconnect is in their brain? I certainly don’t know Michael Thomas Sides, but he had friends and one presumes relatives and was 31 years old. He had a lot of life left to live.

I’ve been looking at the media reports on this and the media reports state the police know whom they are looking for so why don’t they name a suspect or show video footage because there have to be security cameras around there one would think?

And what caused the altercation in the first place? I mean bar fights and beefs start over all sorts of stuff, right? Dumb things like a barstool, or owing somebody money, or a perceived slight when someone else is wasted or hitting on someone’s girl, right? So what was it?

My age must be showing but it used to be when there was a bar fight in Ardmore, it wasn’t settled with weapons. You might see some barstools fly around. You would hear glass get broken. You might even see somebody get punched or tossed out of a bar by a bouncer, but not hear they were murdered later.

But this whole thing being reported of a beef in a bar and then these guys meet up on the street later sounds like somebody was looking for somebody else begs the question of was this premeditated?

And I guess the police can say that there’s no potential threat to the public, but how do you know these days? If the police are implying they know who it is, then why aren’t they releasing more information?

Anyway I hope this is resolved soon. Ardmore will always be a special place to me. Prayers to the families of those involved because their lives are all changed forever now.

Police investigating stabbing death in Ardmore

Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin R. Steele and Lower Merion Township Police Superintendent Michael J. McGrath announce the investigation of a homicide that occurred in the early morning hours of Saturday, June 10, 2023.

On Saturday, at 1:33 a.m., Lower Merion Police responded to a reported stabbing at the intersection of Cricket Avenue and Cricket Terrace in the Ardmore section of Lower Merion. Upon arrival, they located a male suffering from stab wounds. The victim, later identified as Michael Thomas Sides, was transported to Lankenau Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 2:28 a.m. An autopsy is scheduled for today at the Montgomery County Coroner’s Office.

Montgomery County Detectives and Lower Merion Police launched a joint investigation into this apparent homicide. Early indications are the stabbing occurred following an earlier altercation in a nearby bar. There is no threat to the public at this time. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Lower Merion Township Police at 610-649-1000 or Montgomery County Detectives at 610-278-3368. Anonymous text tips can be submitted using MontcoCrimeTips on the STOPit! app.

~ Main Line Media News reporting a press release issued

whose america are we living in?

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When you see photos like this they just make you happy. Obviously in love, on their wedding day, their whole lives ahead of them. Until ICE (immigration) shows up like modern day Nazis at the Septa train station in Haverford and arrests the husband.

I used to live in Haverford.  I used to work near Haverford Train Station.  I grew up in Haverford.  I just can’t imagine the terror this man felt.  I learned about his plight when a friend posted on Facebook:

 

I thought this possibly couldn’t be true, then I remember conversations I have had with people even locally in Chester County about ICE going into schools, ICE raiding restaurants and other businesses country and city, ICE rounding people up off the streets and throwing them into vans, asking for papers at SEPTA stops in Philadelphia (a supposed “sanctuary city”), tales of immigrants with “go” bags packed by their front doors in case they have to run, and does this seem crazy that we are living in a country that allows this?

We are a nation formed of immigrants.  Give us your tired, your hungry, your poor.  I have friends who emigrated to this country.  I thank God that all of them are legal citizens.

Jonatan Palacios is his name.  His lovely wife Lillie Williams has a You Caring Page up. I don’t know them personally, but what is being done to them is a crazy horror show at the hands of the US Government.

I am going to let HER words tell THEIR story.  Lillie pardon me for copying and pasting your message, but your words have power:

The Story

My name is Lillie Williams and early yesterday morning, on May 11th, immigration ripped me away from my husband. 

We are working with a lawyer to get him out and get him back home to me as soon as possible, but we need help covering all of the expenses, fees, and loss of income as we work to do everything I can to get Jonatan out and back to his home and family.

Why did we get caught in this mess? Because we were going through proper legal motions. We submitted an I-130 spousal petition for him in October. We were working with the system to correct his legal status from his case when he entered as an unaccompanied minor at the age of 16. 

Jonatan is my best friend and soulmate. I appreciate any help and support that you can provide to help us through this difficult time. 

Background:

Jonatan and I had went on our first date the summer before my Junior year at Bryn Mawr College, on May 24th, 2010.

My roommate at the time had been dating Jonatan’s older brother for about a year before we started dating. Always thinking herself the matchmaker, she had made several attempts at getting Jonatan and I together before it finally happened. The final straw that brought the two of us together was a mishap one night, where my roommate had accidentally locked me out of the apartment in my pajamas when she was late to a date with Jonatan’s brother. I called my forgetful Italian friend to please turn around and let me back in, but instead she sent Jonatan to my rescue. He then had my number and asked if he could keep it.We started dating only a few months later and it was as if there was a magnetic force that brought us together. We were inseparable. Then, several hard events in my life happened which brought us even closer together. We both became each other’s home.

We were legally married at one one of our favorite restaurants in Philadelphia, Amada on October 11th, 2014 and a year later we had our religious wedding ceremony with friends and family at Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens on October 15th, 2015. 

The pastor from Jonatan’s church officiated with the service in Spanish and translated into English so that everyone there would understand. It was one of the happiest evenings of our lives.

When we were getting ready to get married, I learned about Jonatan’s case. I thought that it was something that we would be able to resolve with marriage– since I am a born United States Citizen and my ancestry goes back in the United States to colonial days I thought it would be a simple case of petitioning for him once we were married. I found out after that the case was a lot more complicated than either of us had thought.

It turns out that people don’t become citizens simply through marriage to a US Citizen Spouse. It is a long and difficult process and sometimes, if you are unlucky, things can go wrong with your case. 

More About the Issue:

If you would like to know more about the overall issue, there is a whole organization of families like mine that have gone through or are going through similar issues, American Families United. You can learn more by going to http://www.americanfamiliesunited.org/.

 

This is so unreal.  Their crime was being naïve and thinking they could trust the United States of America. They filed what they thought was the correct paperwork and instead of help, he gets arrested at the Septa station in Haverford with assistance by Lower Merion Police Department.  Ok, so let’s be fair, I am guessing Lower Merion Police Department did not have much choice in the matter when the Federal Government comes calling, but can you imagine the abject terror he must have felt along with anyone else who was around there on May 11th?

Ok so those of you who are die hard conservatives are getting ready to sharpen your keyboards and read me the riot act for this post, but please.

Don’t.

Stop and think about this for a moment.  This young couple were trying to right a wrong. They were not trying to be deceitful.  Now this guy is sitting in some jail facility in York, PA and do we even know if he has been able to see his wife? Or other family?  They were not hiding and they were punished anyway.

For every one of these stories I hear, the mental image of World War II come to mind.  The stories of Holocaust survivors and immigrants of another century telling the stories of Nazis demanding papers during World War II era Europe.  Tell me, how is this different? Because it is happening under the banner of the United States of America?

What is it that is carved on Lady Liberty? What is the exact figure of immigrants who came through Ellis Island and passed the Statue of Liberty between 1820 and 1920? 34 Million? This is the poem Lady Liberty wears:

“The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles.
From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“”Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!”” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

 

There is a vigil planned for Jonatan Palacios on June 8th.  There is a Facebook event set up

If you care to contribute to the young couple’s legal expenses (immigration lawyers are not cheap), please visit You Caring Help Jonatan Palacios be reunited with his wife and family!

I am the descendant of immigrants.  I am descended from three nationalities which were once discriminated against and disparaged against – Irish, German, Italian.  I grew up with many tales including “Irish need not apply” and WOP jokes and disparaging German comments . I fear for my legal US citizen friends who emigrated here because some still have the lingering traces of the countries they were born in.  What could be done to them in error because they don’t have your typical American accent?

Whether you know this couple or not, if you can peacefully or peaceably help, help.  Attend the vigil, write elected officials (including all 14 commissioners in Lower Merion Township to ask WTF??,  essentially.)

Whose America is this? Whose America are we living in?  I am not sure  and I am so sad at this latest turn of events.