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Here’s a recap of the top stories on the morning of April 24, 2025:
2 men detained at Albemarle courthouse in alleged ICE raid
Reported by VPM News’ Meghin Moore and Hannah Davis-Reid
On Tuesday morning, two men were detained by purported plainclothes US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials at the Albemarle County Courthouse.
There were at least three officials in the courthouse who did not fully identify themselves, according to Nicholas Reppucci, who works with the Albemarle County Public Defender’s Office. The office was representing Teodoro Dominguez Rodriguez, one of the men who was later detained.
The Albemarle public defender’s office did not know that ICE officials were going to be in the courthouse, nor did the federal agency or a deputized authority tell the public defender’s office that they were going to take people into custody, according to Reppucci.
In response to Tuesday’s detainments, several dozen protesters lined the sidewalk outside the courthouse on Wednesday afternoon, waving signs and chanting — including Robert Fudge, who told VPM News that footage of one of the detainments obtained by The Daily Progress looked like “the kind of thing that [the] KGB would do, roughing up people and carting them away.”
"That's not America, and I'm pretty upset about that,” Fudge told VPM News.
Hanover honors students who integrated county schools in 1963
Reported by VPM News’ Lyndon German
The night before the first day of school in fall 1963, 15-year-old Walter Lee’s confidence was fading.
Nine years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down racial discrimination in schools in Brown v. Board of Education, Hanover County’s NAACP chapter and faith communities were struggling to find families willing to cross racial lines and integrate the county’s public schools, out of fear of retribution.
Eight students, including Lee, had accepted the offer. But as the start of the semester approached, fear crept in.
“That night, it kind of hit me that I was about to experience something I’ve never experienced in my life.” Lee told VPM News. “I never really got on my knees and prayed before, but that night, I prayed for all of us to be safe and to get through this — and God answered that prayer.”
More than 60 years later, Hanover commemorated the bravery of the eight students in ceremonies at the two schools they integrated — Mechanicsville and Patrick Henry high schools — including Walter, his brother Norbert and their cousin Phyllis.
News you might have missed from around the commonwealth
- Interim registrar will handle primary voting in Richmond as the electoral board wraps up its search for a replacement (The Richmonder)
- Charlottesville could exceed its 10-year commitment to affordable housing (Charlottesville Tomorrow)
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