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Illinois State Police release body camera footage in fatal Bureau County police shooting of 3-year-old boy  WQAD
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An aerial view of the home where the shooting took place in the Hummingbird Lane Mobile Home Park on Monday, May 11, 2026 in DePue. Law enforcement agencies are investigating the scene of a fatal domestic disturbance in the 2700 block of East Street west of DePue. According to the Bureau County Sheriff’s Office, officers responded to a barricaded subject at a mobile home in the Hummingbird Lane Mobile Home Park. A 3-year-old later died at a local hospital, while the suspect remained hospitalized Monday afternoon. (Scott Anderson)
The police officer involved in the Mother’s Day shooting in rural DePue – a 3-year-old was struck and killed by gunfire – will not face criminal charges, Bureau County’s state’s attorney confirmed Wednesday.
Dan Anderson said he was contacted by the appellate prosecutor’s office, which was tabbed to investigate the May 10 shooting that resulted in the death of Damian Camacho. While the report was not disclosed in its entirety, Anderson did confirm the key finding.
“I have been informed that the decision of the special prosecutor is that no charges will be filed against the officer involved in the shooting,” Anderson said.
Illinois State Police issued a press release late Wednesday that included body camera footage from two officers present.
The press release did not, however, contain a determination on whether the officers acted within the scope of their duties. Shaw Local News Network staff concluded the graphic footage was not suitable for broadcast on any news platform.
That editorial review further showed that police did give repeat instructions for Anthony Rodriguez to release a woman and two children before police broke down a bedroom door and discharged shots. The video further corroborates reports and in-court statements that Rodriguez refused to release the injured child for medical care.
Rodriguez, 42, of Princeton, faces up to five years in prison if convicted of aggravated unlawful restraint. He is charged with misdemeanor assault and domestic battery.
He initially was set for trial in August, but Public Defender Eric May sought a continuance – and Rodriguez voluntarily waived his right to a speedy trial – to pursue pre-trial matters, including a mental health evaluation for Rodriguez.
Tom Collins covers criminal justice in La Salle County.

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PRINCETON, New Jersey (WABC) — Officials in Princeton, New Jersey and the Princeton Police Department said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was present in the community on Thursday morning.
The municipality said a crossing guard first noticed the agents around 8:30 a.m. between John Street and Birch Avenue and they were believed to have been affiliated with ICE.
Two men were taken into custody, one who was on his way to work and the other on the way back from taking his children to school, officials said.
Officials said ICE was unable to provide reasons why they were detained.
Princeton police said they do not participate in federal immigration enforcement.
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Tractor operator killed in collision with Amtrak train identified  WQAD
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Sunny. High around 85F. Winds light and variable..
Clear skies. Low near 65F. Winds light and variable.
Updated: July 7, 2026 @ 10:38 am

Prison awaits a Princeton man after admitting to dealing meth.
Twenty-eight-year-old Stephen Bissonette was sentenced to 3 years in prison after agreeing to a plea deal in Bureau County Court. He was initially charged last winter.
Bissonette was sentenced to prison in 2023 after pleading guilty in Bureau County to felony theft and criminal damage to property.
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Oakland Cemetery is located at 1013 Park Ave. W. in Princeton and is open every day to the public from sunrise to sunset. (BCR File Photo)
PRINCETON – Oakland Cemetery has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The cemetery is being recognized for its landscape design in addition to its grave markers and historic structures.
The application was submitted by Princeton resident Pam Lange, who has written other nominations. In 2017, she researched and helped to write the nomination for the North and South End Historic Districts on Princeton’s Main Street. A year later, she was successful in listing the 1905 Hampshire Colony Congregational Church building on the National Register.
Forty-six acres of Oakland Cemetery are included in the National Register listing. This takes in the oldest sections that are north of the Summers Chapel and are collectively named the Oakland Cemetery Historic District.
The origins of Oakland date back to 1836. At that time it was private land belonging to Rev. Lucien Farnham, the first minister of the Hampshire Colony Congregational Church. The Farnham’s five-year-old son, also named Lucien, had died, and they buried their child on that land in Dec. 1836. Over time, Farnham donated four acres for a church cemetery.
In 1862, the city of Princeton purchased from Farnham nearly 12 acres of land adjoining the four-acre burying ground. The city also agreed to lease the four acres. By the end of 1863, the two tracts of land were platted together and named Oakland Cemetery. It was given that name for all the oak trees that grew on the land. Many are still standing today.
Additional purchases of land over the years have increased Oakland’s size. The original four acres of Congregational Church land were deeded to the city of Princeton in 1903. Today the cemetery totals nearly 87 acres, includes 15 miles of roadways, and more than 13,000 graves. It also retains many of its historic elements including the original landscape plan, receiving vault, historic structures and early tombstones.
Trees continue to be an important feature at Oakland.There are approximately 360 trees covering the grounds in varieties that include oak, maple, pine and hickory, to name a few. A white pine standing in the oldest park of the cemetery is a state record holder. It reaches 97 feet in height and has a girth of 14.5 feet.
Oakland Cemetery is located at 1013 Park Ave. W. and is open every day to the public from sunrise to sunset.
Oakland Cemetery in Princeton has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The cemetery is being recognized for its landscape design in addition to its grave markers and historic structures. (Photo Provided)
Shaw Local News Network provides local news throughout northern Illinois

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Lori Nelson, longtime behavioral health leader and daughter of Freedom House founder Nedda Simon, was recently elected to the nonprofit’s Board of Directors. (Photo Provided By Freedom House)
Freedom House, a domestic violence nonprofit based in Princeton, has elected Lori Nelson, a longtime leader in behavioral health in McHenry County, to its Board of Directors.
Nelson brings more than 40 years of experience in behavioral health and leadership and has served her community through school board service at McHenry High School and volunteer work focused on youth and abuse prevention.
“Lori’s career reflects an extraordinary commitment to ethical leadership, quality services and community collaboration,” Freedom House Chief Executive Officer Michael Zerneck said in a news release. “Her extensive background in behavioral health systems, compliance and strategic operations, combined with her lifelong connection to Freedom House’s mission, will be an invaluable asset to our board and the families we serve.”
Nelson is the oldest daughter of Freedom House founder Nedda Simon and is preparing to retire from being president of Lori Nelson Consulting, PLLC.
“Freedom House has always represented courage, compassion and accountability,” Nelson said in a news release. “I am honored to continue my mother’s legacy by supporting an organization that has never wavered in its commitment to survivors and to strengthening our communities.”
Bill Freskos is a multimedia journalist based in the Illinois Valley. He covers hard news, local government, sports, business enterprise, and politics while contributing to Shaw Local Radio stations for Shaw Media across La Salle, Bureau, and Putnam counties.

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It was during his senior high school year that Richard Widmark purchased his first automobile. Leslie Monroe had his Chevrolet dealership on the corner of Main and Peru streets, across from the post office. There was actually a gas station on the corner, and the dealership was just to the east of it, but it did run right over the roof of the station, as the land had a definite drop in elevation on that corner.
The gas station was the first story, and the west end of the dealership was the second story on the corner. Leslie Monroe was also a notary republic, and so you could buy a car and get a stamped certificate to drive a car all in the same place, as long as you could show him you knew how. It’s not that simple today. It is just another lost convenience, maybe for the better, to more and bigger government.
When May Win was in the early part of her teaching career, this same kind of common sense convenience was at work and would certainly cause an uproar today.
The paths that Richard Widmark and Mary Win Skinner followed in their careers were somewhat similar. Their personal lives had similarities also. Richard Widmark was studying acting at Lake Forest College, after graduating high school, while  Mary Win Skinner studied art at the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois. Widmark headed east after college (following his future wife to New York City) and two years of teaching at his alma mater. He watched every silent movie at the New York City Museum of Modern Art to hone his acting skills while doing radio and Broadway, and then he was on theater tour in Chicago.
Richard Widmark married Ora Jean Hazelwood, April 5, 1942, in Evanston, Ill. Mary Win also went east and then back to Chicago, furthering her skills with the Art Students League in New York City and the Academy of Fine Art in Chicago. She earned her master’s degree from Northern Illinois University at DeKalb. She first taught art in Arthur, Ill., and then at Logan Junior High School in Princeton. Mary Winifred Skinner married Eugene Walter in 1943, at the Church on The Hill, east of Princeton. Eugene’s grandfather performed the ceremony.
They lived in Florida for two years, while Eugene was in the U.S. Army, and after the war, she started teaching at Princeton Township High School in 1947, the same year Richard started his career in the movies in “Kiss of Death.” Eugene was working at Anderson Mosshart, while Mary Win was teaching. Mary Win and Eugene adopted a baby girl, Sara, born Jan. 19, 1949. She would have to give up her teaching to take care of her new daughter unless something could be worked out. O.V. Shaffer was the principal, and something was worked out. It was a convenience for all involved; the school, the students, baby Sara and Mary Win Walter. Mary Win and husband, Eugene, lived on the family land, at Greenwood Cottage, that she inherited from her great aunt, Lottie Taylor, and where she would basically spend the rest of her life. As it was then larger and just a stone’s throw from the high school property, O.V. had it set up for the students to walk to Mary Win’s home, in the kitchen, where desks were set up to get their art lessons. It was a win-win situation for all that just wouldn’t fly today; there would be an uproar.
Mary Win and Eugene Walter would have just the one daughter, Sara. Richard and Jean Widmark would have just the one daughter, Anne, July 25, 1945. Mary Win remarried a close friend of the family, Don Norris, in 1982, after the death of her first husband, Eugene, in 1972. Richard remarried a close friend of the family, Susan Blanchard, in 1999, after the death of Jean in 1997.
Richard Widmark was an avid and lifelong reader, as was Mary Win. Richard Widmark loved to travel, many times for different roles in his movies: Austria, England, Germany, Mexico, Scotland and Switzerland are just a few of the countries. Mary Win traveled extensively after she retired: To Russia with her stepsister Kate (Skinner) Graham, Ireland, a white water rafting trip with Bindy Walter, out west, and a climb to the top of Machu Picchu, the Inca site in the Cusco Region of Peru, South America.
Richard Widmark took up painting as a way to relax and usually had something on his easel. He dabbled at it. He said, “… we have a little guest house in our garden. I enjoy going out there to read and study, away from the interruptions in the house. That’s where I do my painting. I’m so terrible at it; I don’t want anyone peeking over my shoulder.” Widmark  was very modest about the definite flair for painting he developed.  It relaxed him, and some of his canvases, in fact, were exhibited. Mary Win never took up acting, but as I know, as an artist, you are always on stage when promoting your work, or just having it hang for the public to see. Richard Widmark entertained the world in his movies, and Mary Win taught her students to entertain themselves and friends with art.
We’ll never know if Mary Win Skinner had anything to do with the detailing of Richard Widmark. Maybe it worked both ways. I think they each picked up a little from each other. Richard Widmark passed away March 24, 2008, and his daughter, Anne, lives in the Santa Fe, N.M. area. Mary Win (Skinner) Walter Norris passed away June 27, 2014. Her first cousin, Clay H. Skinner, lives on South Euclid Avenue in a Skinner family home, where Richard Widmark and family lived in 1926. Her daughter, Sara (Walter) Madl, passed away Feb. 28, 2012. Mary Win has a great-granddaughter, Nicole (Niki) Zahn, in Milwaukee, Wis., who is also going to be a teacher. Richard Widmark and Mary Win Skinner, two of the classics from the Class of 1932.  Thanks for a little assist from Bonnie (Monroe) Schutt.

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Logan Lions (Shaw Local News Network)
Princeton Logan will take the No. 1 seed into the IESA Class 3A regional eighth-grade volleyball tournament it will host beginning Saturday.
The Lions (15-2) will face No. 8 Rockford Kennedy at 9 a.m. Saturday followed by No. 5 Spring Valley JFK vs. No. 4 Rockford Marshall at 10:15 a.m.
In Kewanee, No. 7 Bureau Valley will meet No. 2 Princeville at 10 a.m. Saturday at the 2A Wethersfield eighth grade regional.
In the seventh grade, No. 3 seed Bureau Valley defeated No. 6 Cambridge 25-6, 25-7 at the 2A Wethersfield Regional on Saturday. The Storm will play No. 2 Princeville at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. Host Wethersfield is the No. 1 seed.
No. 3 seed Princeton Logan lost to No. 4 LaSalle Lincoln 17-25, 26-24, 23-25 and No. 7 seed Spring Valley JFK lost to No. 2 Mendota Northbrook 6-25, 17-25 on Saturday in the Class 3A regional at LaSalle.
Kevin has been sports editor of the BCR since 1986, covering Bureau County and IL Valley Sports. Was previously sports editor of the St. Louis Daily News and a regular contributor for the St. Louis Cardinals Magazine. He is a member of the IBCA and Illinois Valley Hall of Fames. He is one of 4 sportswriters from his tiny hometown Atlanta, IL

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Dozens of people cool off in Alexander Pool on Wednesday, July 26, 2023 in Princeton. (Scott Anderson)
The Princeton Park District provided an update after Alexander Pool was closed last month due to a “major mechanical failure” with their filtration pump and motor.
According to the district, it’s still waiting on the delivery of the replacement pump and motor assembly with an unclear timeline.
“We are nearing the time that was initially promised for the delivery,” the district wrote in a statement. “Because these units are custom built-to-order, the timeline remains dependent on the manufacturer.”
For now, the Bureau County Metro Center continues to offer extended open swim times to provide alternative aquatic recreation.
To help make up for the late start, the park district said they will also extend the swimming season later into the year, as permitted by the availability of lifeguards and the weather.
“We understand this is frustrating news as the summer heat continues, and we deeply appreciate the community’s ongoing patience and understanding,” the statement said. “We will continue to provide regular updates as soon as new information becomes available.
For updates and up-to-date schedules, visit the park district’s website or call (815) 872-0840.
Bill Freskos is a multimedia journalist based in the Illinois Valley. He covers hard news, local government, sports, business enterprise, and politics while contributing to Shaw Local Radio stations for Shaw Media across La Salle, Bureau, and Putnam counties.

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