Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,
The student journalists at Loyola University Chicago’s Phoenix newspaper have issued a groveling apology for initially reporting the facts about the man charged with murdering 18-year-old Sheridan Gorman.
In an editor’s note, the paper stated: “Additionally, in the body of the original post, we described the man who was charged as an ‘illegal immigrant,’ using language provided by the Department of Homeland Security. That language does not align with Associated Press style, nor does it align with the values of this newspaper.”
It continued: “No human’s existence is illegal, and we quickly changed our wording to reflect that. We acknowledge the harm such language can cause and the power and importance of the words we choose to use. We deeply regret these errors, and we’re committed to continuing the high standards we hold for ourselves as journalists and members of the Loyola, Rogers Park and Chicago communities.”
Loyola University newspaper has issued an apology in the wake of the murder of freshman Sheridan Gorman…ostensibly to her accused murderer. The Phoenix was sorry for calling Jose Medina-Medina an “illegal immigrant” instead of a “Rogers Park Resident”…https://t.co/01UFG9ySL8
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) March 25, 2026
The suspect, 25-year-old Jose Medina-Medina, a Venezuelan national living in the United States illegally, faces charges in the fatal shooting of Gorman on a pier at Chicago’s Tobey Prinz Beach. Gorman, a Loyola freshman, was walking with friends when she was chased and shot in the head.
The case fits the pattern of endless preventable violence perpetrated by criminal illegals.
Worse still, Governor JB Pritzker attempted to shift responsibility by blaming President Trump for the murder:
Medina-Medina was apprehended by Border Patrol in May 2023 and released into the U.S. interior. Weeks later, Chicago police arrested him for shoplifting, but he was released again under sanctuary policies that shield illegal immigrants from federal immigration authorities.
Chicago Alderwoman Maria Hadden (D–Rogers Park) downplayed the incident, claiming “it sounds like, this might have been a wrong place, wrong time, running into a person who had a gun, they might have startled this person at the end of the pier.”
Gorman’s distraught family pushed back hard against attempts to minimize what happened. Their statement read: “What happened to Sheridan cannot be reduced to a ‘senseless tragedy,’ nor can it be explained in general terms about public safety.”
They added: “Sheridan was our daughter. She was 18 years old. She was doing something entirely normal — walking near her campus with friends. She should be here.”
The family continued: “Calling this ‘senseless’ is not enough. There must be a clear and honest accounting of what went wrong. We will not allow Sheridan’s life to be reduced to a talking point or a generalization. We expect leadership that is willing to confront hard truths and ensure that what happened to her does not happen again.”
Further: “Sheridan was a daughter, a sister, and a young woman whose life was taken in a way that should never have been possible. We are not interested in political arguments or in watching responsibility shift from one place to another. If there were failures—as the Governor himself has acknowledged—then every one of them must be identified, examined, and addressed directly. The location of those failures matters less than the willingness to confront them honestly.”
They concluded: “Our daughter is not a policy debate. She is a life that was taken, and that demands accountability.”
Governor JB Pritzker responded by acknowledging failures while pointing elsewhere: “This has been a terrible tragedy … there have been real failures. Those failures, of course, extend beyond the borders of Illinois. That’s their national failures, a failure to have comprehensive immigration reform, a failure of the president to follow his own edict to go after the worst of the worst.”
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson avoided taking ownership of the city’s long-standing sanctuary policies: “Let’s just be very clear, between the Safe-T Act and the welcoming city ordinance, the welcoming city ordinance was passed 40 years ago by the first Black mayor in the history of Chicago, and the Safety Act was passed under the governor at that time, who was a Republican.”
The family’s direct call for accountability stands in sharp contrast to the deflection and word games from officials and the student press. While the Loyola Phoenix regrets using accurate language from the Department of Homeland Security, the real harm remains the policies that allowed a twice-released illegal immigrant to cross paths with an innocent student.
Sheridan Gorman’s death was not inevitable. It resulted from repeated decisions that prioritized open-border practices and sanctuary protections over basic public safety. As long as leaders refuse to secure the border and enforce immigration law, more American lives will be lost to the same failures.
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