This and that: Lafayette Jeff students join anti-ICE walkouts
Plus, other reads on a Thursday. And Dining Divas check out Aura at the top of Ninth Street Hill.
ICYMI …: First up, in case you missed it this morning, here are the latest allegations filed in court in the investigation into the Jan. 18 shooting of Tippecanoe Superior Court 2 Judge Steve Meyer and Kim Meyer. The updated details came in court documents unsealed after Nevaeh Bell, a sixth suspect, was arrested Wednesday. An initial hearing in Bell’s case had not been listed by Cass Superior 2 Judge Lisa Swaim in court records, as of noon Thursday.
LAFAYETTE JEFF STUDENTS LEAD WALKOUT TO PROTEST ICE
Hundreds of students from Lafayette Jefferson High School left class Wednesday morning, gathering on the school’s plaza before marching around the perimeter of the campus in what they called an Anti-ICE Walkout.
“We were inspired by the thousands of other students standing up across the nation,” Sophia Bittinger, a sophomore at Lafayette Jeff and one of the demonstration. “We watched some of the richest school in Indiana and figured our school, full of minorities, should also support.”
The walk out at the school at 1801 S. 18th St. follows other student-led demonstrations across the state and across the country after the death of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old VA nurse from Minneapolis, who was beaten, shot multiple times and killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on the street. Pretti’s shooting death followed another in Minnesota this month, when an ICE agent shot and killed Renée Good in an encounter on a Minneapolis street, as efforts to counter ICE maneuvers ramped up there.
Last week, students from West Lafayette High School spent part of Friday out of class, making posters and marching across Purdue’s campus and through the city as part of what was billed as a National ICE Shutdown Day.
In the past few weeks, there have been other demonstrations across the community.
Bittinger said she started things at Jeff with a new Instagram account called jhs.against.ice, where she post an announcement over the weekend. She and Zarielis Zayas, a Jeff sophomore, rallied support from groups Ayuda Mutua, an immigrant-led mutual aid network in Lafayette, and Hoosier Rise, which has been mapping student walkouts and other activities across Indiana.
Mark Preston, Lafayette Jeff’s principal, and LSC Superintendent Les Huddle flagged the possibility of the walkout in a letter sent to parents Tuesday. In it, they said that the school was “committed to respecting individual rights while maintaining a safe, orderly learning environment.” He told parents that the school remained neutral in these situations, classes would continue and that student handbook rules on absences and disruptions would be followed.
Bittinger said the students didn’t face blowback when they returned to class about an hour after the walkout started.
“I think we were both very happy with how our protest turned out,” Bittinger said. “We had hundreds of students peacefully speaking up for immigrants in this town, which is exactly what we hoped for.”
THIS AND THAT …
PART OF LAFAYETTE’S OPIOID SETTLEMENT HEADS TO VALLEY OAKS: A $386,728 portion of Lafayette’s opioid settlement funding will go to Valley Oaks Health for programming and services dealing opioid addiction and recovery, the city announced this week.
“These funds represent an important step forward in our community’s ongoing response to the opioid crisis,” Lafayette Mayor Tony Roswarski said in a release. “By partnering with local organizations that are already doing critical prevention, treatment, and recovery work, we can strengthen the support network for individuals and families affected by substance use and help build a healthier, more resilient Lafayette.”
The distribution is the second one in recent months by the city. In November, the city reported receiving 18 applications for grants totaling $1.3 million from the $3.37 million the city expects to get over the next 16 years from the opioid settlements. From those, a committee assigned by the city awarded a total of $500,000 for programs that “demonstrate measurable community impact, collaboration and clear alignment with opioid abatement uses.” At the time, Mayor Tony Roswarski called the distribution the first of several coming in the next couple of years.
For a list of those awarded in November, here’s a link.
PURDUE SETS PRESIDENTIAL LECTURE SERIES LINEUP: Purdue announced the guests for the free Q&As hosted by President Mung Chiang for the spring 2026 semester. Times and locations for each talk will be announced later. Here’s the lineup:
Timothy Ferris, Feb. 26: Ferris, former newspaper reporter and editor of Rolling Stone magazine and professor emeritus at University of California, Berkeley, is a science writer whose work includes “The Science of Liberty,” which highlights the pivotal role that science plays at the core of liberty and free expression and as a precursor to a liberal society while also advancing and promoting economic prosperity. He also produced the Voyager phonograph record, an artifact of human civilization containing music, sounds of Earth and encoded photographs launched aboard the twin Voyager interstellar spacecraft that’s now exiting the solar system and was among the journalists selected as candidates to fly aboard the space shuttle in 1986.
Lisa Su, March 2: Su is chair and CEO of Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD). Su was Time’s 2024 CEO of the Year and has been recognized as one of Barron’s World’s Best CEOs and Fortune’s Most Powerful People in Business.
Shantanu Narayen, March 25: Narayen is chair and CEO of Adobe, where he helped pioneer a cloud-based subscription model for the company’s creative software.
Bruce Leak, April 30: Leak is co-founder of Playground Global, a deep tech venture capital firm. He’s had a number of roles, including with Apple Computer, where he led the company’s efforts on 32-bit Color QuickDraw, which became the foundation of true color display on Mac screens and sparked the birth of QuickTime; WebTV; and Rocket Science Games.
For more information, check: www.purdue.edu/president/lecture-series.
CANDIDATE FILING DEADLINE: NOON FRIDAY: Candidates looking to get on Republican or Democratic ballots for the May 5 primary have until noon Friday, Feb. 6, to get that done. For a look at the candidates that already have filed for federal, state and county positions on Tippecanoe County ballots, check out this list compiled by the county’s elections office.
DINING DIVAS AND DUDES: AURA, THE LASTEST AT THE TOP OF NINTH STREET HILL
Dining Divas and Dudes is a team that has been reporting and rating new restaurants, hidden gems, international fare and updated menus from old favorites for years now via Visit Lafayette-West Lafayette at homeofpurdue.com. Here at Based in Lafayette, we feature some of Dining Divas and Dudes’ latest finds.
The latest edition: They checked out Aura – Craft Bar + Kitchen at the corner of Kossuth and South Ninth streets. “If you’re brushed up on the reviews thus far, you’re familiar with this location. Like a cat, this place has lived many lives! The same arena once hosted Krug Korner Pub and even further back it was a pharmacy called the Medicine Shoppe. Anywho, we’re back here at Ninth and Kossuth to check out Aura - Craft Bar + Kitchen. It’s received another face lift and if it doesn’t stop soon it just might get itself a contract on Bravo.”
The upshot from the review: “It’s got quite an extensive menu with options ranging from artisan cheese boards to shawarma, flatbreads, and of course a very intriguing cocktail menu. … The owners here also own Big League and the Tick Tock offering delicious bar food and diner menus executed well. … The lovely and attentive server offered us dessert, and being the gluttonous monsters we are, we obliged. We are not great at resisting peer pressure, especially when there’s sugar involved. We shared a lemon parfait and whiskey chocolate pudding. Honestly, I couldn’t get an answer over the flurry of gawks and babbles. ... As fate would have it, the whiskey chocolate mousse party is also self-sacrifice worthy. We couldn’t decide which was better, and it seemed to be whichever one we were eating at that moment.”
For a full taste, here’s the whole review: Dining Divas and Dudes Visit Aura - Craft Bar + Kitchen
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Tips, story ideas? I’m at davebangert1@gmail.com.
Kudos to these students. They aren’t a bunch of “kids trying to get out of class”, or “indoctrinated sheep”, as some “adults” are trying to portray them. This isn’t 1970. They can see with their own eyes what is going on, and have the conviction and courage to make their voices heard.
Thanks, Dave. A few of the signs from the protest in case you can't see them:
"No one is illegal on stolen land"
"We ... are 4 ppl"
"Fuck ICE"
"VIVA..."
"Trump is Hitler..."
"Nobody is born with hate, it's taught"
"Love"
"Liberty and justice for all"
"ICE out"