Quakertown parents demand action from school board following violence and arrests at student anti-ICE walkout

Less than a week after a student protest of federal immigration enforcement ended in a bloody confrontation with police and five students arrested, parents and community members criticized the Quakertown Community School District’s actions and called for accountability at a board meeting Thursday night.

Some parents criticized Quakertown High School’s decision to cancel the protest after administrators received a “concerning threat of violence” the night before the planned Feb. 20 walkout. They said the school should have known students would still leave campus to protest and should have planned for their safety.

“Were other options provided? Because, if not, you failed these kids by giving them no option other than walking by themselves into the community and obviously having a lot of harassment, which is just too much to ask,” said Lisen Cummings, of Richland Township, during the public comment portion of the meeting.

“I know this is a really hard position for you to be in, and there probably wasn’t a right answer, but I’m very disappointed that it seems the school is wiping their hands of the kids who were injured and arrested,” she added. “We can and must do better.”

While some speakers at Thursday’s meeting agreed with the district’s decision and expressed their support of police, the majority of speakers condemned the role of police officers in the confrontation, especially Quakertown Chief Scott McElree, who is also the borough manager. Videos from bystanders appear to show McElree in plain clothes, confronting students and putting one in a chokehold.

At a borough council meeting on Monday, residents demanded that McElree resign.

Five students have been charged with aggravated assault in connection to the events, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania alleged Monday that McElree was acting as a “counter-protester” and had violated his commitment to “serve and protect” his community as an officer.

The police department said in a statement to WHYY News on Monday that the borough and Quakertown police are “fully cooperating” with the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office as it investigates the Feb. 20 incident.

“Until this investigation is complete, neither the Borough nor its Police Department will be commenting on this matter,” the statement reads.

Laura Foster, a Quakertown resident and organizer with Upper Bucks United, said at Thursday’s meeting that the district should support the students who were arrested during the confrontation. She questioned Superintendent Lisa Hoffman’s statement on Sunday that expressed gratitude to local law enforcement.

“Everyone up here needs to look at this with a place of love in your heart for all of the students, including the students who were being put in chokeholds, who were being pushed on the ground and thrown in planters, while Lisa Hoffman writes a letter how she is thankful to the police for keeping them safe,” Foster said.

Olivia Burke, a 2018 graduate of Quakertown High School, said she and other students organized a walkout in 2018 for March for Our Lives in support of gun control legislation. She said there were safety threats then, too, but the school and local police still supported the event.

“That walkout was coordinated with … teachers present,” she said. “We worked for weeks to make sure it went off safely. I don’t understand how this could have happened to these students …. I do not understand why we are using the police to persecute these children.”

Following more than an hour of public comment, David O’Donnell, president of the school board, said board members were grateful to all of the speakers.

“It’s very meaningful, and the emotions up here are just as raw as they are out there,” he said. “This, no matter how you look at it, this was not anything anybody here would ever want. There is no one up here or out there that I believe would celebrate violence against children. It breaks my heart to see, and … I acknowledge that we probably have a lot to learn from how we handle the situation, and I think there’s a lot that we can do internally to prevent, possibly prevent, something like this from happening again.”

O’Donnell said the district and community members should learn from the events of Feb. 20.

“I think we’re all very close to this right now,” he said. “It’s still very raw, and I think the most measured approach to a response is going to require some distance and some time from the event and then self-reflection on how we all do better.”