‘United We Stand' rally marches through Siouxland
There were about 50 marchers holding up signs and voicing chants. Organizers said this was a nonviolent event, with multiple speakers raising concerns about the government.
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Each person had their own reason for marching on Friday. One organizer, Jessica Lopez-Walker, said she did it for immigration rights.
'My kids, they go by Lopez-Walker too. So you know getting the card is a real thing,' she said. 'Having those talks with the kids is a real thing. My little girl got up for school and she was like 'oh my God, I have to go save my friend, where's my ID?' And we shouldn't have to have those kinds of talks, but here we are.'
The marchers stopped at three different locations: the Siouxland Veterans Memorial Bridge, the Anderson Dance Pavilion, and the Federal Building in Sioux City. At each stop, a speech and a prayer were given.
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'Us organizing this event, we're all open to communicate on how to build these bridges,' organizer Manape LaMere, a rally organizer. 'That's why we made it a prayer walk. That's why we made a prayer on the bridge, was to bridge South Sioux, the different families that all worked together and spend money in this community.'
Another rally will be held on Saturday with a different organization. That one will go from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the Federal Building in Sioux City.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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What the city won't tell you about Myrtle Beach's new 9 p.m. curfew
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The 9 o'clock curfew, I think, is something we have to agree with down there. And we don't do any of this lightly. We're businesses, we have to make money. Before that, we have to make sure our customers and our employees are safe.' Walker owns an ice cream store, two coffee shops, a haunted house and some parking lots in downtown Myrtle Beach. On weekends, he has four security guards at $27 an hour on patrol. He also has 80 cameras and said they have recorded 'things that you see on video games' by people who 'have no respect for human life, and that's the sad state of where we are right now.' A quick recap: An 18-year-old from Bennettsville fired a gun in a crowd several times, a nearby officer shot and killed him, and 11 people were injured on April 26. Two 18-year-olds from North Carolina, two juveniles and a fifth person were arrested after gunfire erupted in a crowd on June 12. 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With little public discussion, in a state where 17-year-olds can legally get unrestricted driving privileges, the City Council moved its longstanding, reasonable midnight curfew three hours earlier, to a time considered early not only by teenagers but by many of their parents. And the council did this to address a series of shootings that involved either 18-year-olds or 17-year-olds working in the area, individuals to whom the more restrictive curfew would not apply. Moreover, the council did this while agreeing to subject the parents and guardians of the young people who break the curfew to a potential separate violation whose punishment could be $500 or up to 30 days in jail. And the council did so while subjecting employees and business owners to the same potential penalty if a business knowingly lets young people break the curfew on its premises. The council did all this with two votes, actually. The first vote Tuesday — to enact the new curfew permanently — requires another, final vote in two weeks. The second vote Tuesday declared the next two weekends 'extraordinary events,' allowing the city manager to impose the curfew immediately. Apparently 'extraordinary event' is another term for a weekend in Myrtle Beach. Also worth discussing, since the City Council did not, is that the council did all this with a policy but without a full explanation and maybe even appreciation for the enforcement methods that would be involved when officers detain curfew violators. Before detaining anyone for breaking the curfew, police officers would need to determine how old they are, which can be tricky when teenagers don't have driver licenses or other identification, and especially time-consuming. Are officers going to approach crowds of people who look like they might be teenagers and demand ID? What if most of the young people don't have it? 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There's also a more targeted approach to bad apples whose misbehavior leads adults to consider curfews in the first place: 'solutions to address the individuals with a history of bad behavior instead of a blanket curfew.' That's what Columbia's city manager articulated last year. Myrtle Beach has taken another tack, embracing a curfew and enlisting parents' help — or else. 'I think one thing that is very clear with our ordinance is that parents should be responsible for their underage children,' Councilwoman Debbie Conner told one critic at Tuesday's meeting. Will it work? We'll see. Hopefully, we'll also see other tactics employed to reduce shootings. But if the city of Myrtle Beach insists on an earlier curfew, I hope it also insists on sharing the number of juveniles it detains over time, especially on weekends. Juvenile court is closed to the public for appropriate reasons so there will be no way to track curfew violations. 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