PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The Bucks County NAACP said it understands why the Bucks County District Attorney’s office decided not to file charges against the Quakertown police chief for his actions during an anti-ICE protest earlier this year, but said changes to its report need to be implemented immediately.
“After reviewing the report, we believe it would be a mistake to reduce its findings to one headline. No additional criminal charges. Because the district attorney's own report tells us that there are serious things that went wrong on Feb. 20,” said Bucks County NAACP President Adrienne King. On that date, students from Quakertown Community High School walked out in protest of ICE.
The school had tried to cancel the protest due to safety concerns, but about three dozen students walked out that morning and made their way to Front Street, where law enforcement said students threw snowballs at cars, kicked people, and tried to block traffic. Tensions flared when Quakertown Police Chief Scott McElree stepped in wearing plain clothes. Video captured him with his arm around a juvenile’s neck.
Five teens, known as the Quakertown 5, were detained and felony charges were eventually dropped.
The DA’s report called on Quakertown police to follow 26 other police departments in Bucks County in adopting use of force reforms that include removing neck restraints and choke holds by police.
It also used the words “calamitous,” “ill-advised” and “fateful” to describe McElree’s decision to wade into the student-led ICE protest without any clothing or badge identifying him as police instead of waiting for uniformed officers.
“The district attorney determined that the evidence does not support criminal prosecution. We acknowledge that determination, but we will not stop trying to fix that hole. Not criminal does not mean that it was appropriate,” King said.
King said while there needs to be accountability and changes to state law, “healing cannot happen through dual social media posts or by dividing this community into people who support police, people who support the students. Those are false choices.”
“I'm a leader of an organization, and I know if I received that report from the work I did, I as a leader would step down,” King said.
In a statement, the Police Chiefs' Association of Bucks County said it "agrees with the District Attorney's conclusion that the evidence did not support criminal charges against Chief Scott McElree or any other member of the Quakertown Borough Police Department."
"The Association respectfully disagrees with portions of the memorandum that employs strongly categorical descriptions of Chief McElree's actions, including characterizing his decision as 'calamitous' and as 'the precipitating incident which led to violence.' Such characterizations should be carefully distinguished from findings of criminal liability, violations of departmental policy, and objectively established facts. This distinction is especially important because prosecutorial reports carry substantial weight and may influence the perceptions of elected officials, municipal employers, the media, and the public," the association said.
