Violent arrests of high school students protesting ICE shook a Pennsylvania town. Now officials are investigating
Local officials in Pennsylvania are investigating the police response to an anti-ICE protest on Friday where students and officers got into multiple physical confrontations.
“Our office is conducting an independent investigation into the police response during this incident,” the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office said of the protest in Quakertown in a statement on Facebook on Saturday.
The office said it was committed to a “thorough and transparent review” and called on members of the public to submit any footage of the tense encounter, which resulted in upwards of six arrests.
About 35 students walked out of Quakertown Senior High School on Friday to protest Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Donald Trump’s mass deportation efforts, defying a decision from school officials to shutter a planned demonstration over what administrators said was a “threat of violence” against the event.
Accounts differ of what led to the confrontations between students and police.
A widely circulated video of the clashes shows a man in plainclothes putting a girl in a chokehold.
Eyewitnesses and the local Bucks County Courier Times newspaper identified the man as Quakertown Borough Police Chief Scott McElree.
The Independent has requested comment from the police department and McElree.
One demonstrator who witnessed the encounter told the newspaper that the students were unaware McElree was an officer.
“Everyone started to beat on him because he was grabbing at random kids,” the student said.
A bystander who saw the confrontation said the situation escalated further when a male student tried to help the female student, prompting officers to force the male student to the ground.
“The situation completely escalated,” she told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “There were multiple grown men getting in the faces of the children, spit flying out of their mouths.”
Another witness told 6ABC that other adults appeared to get involved in the fighting as the scene devolved into chaos.
“There were other grown men who were bystanders who were getting involved in the situation as well,” the witness said. “They were getting in children’s faces, and one ended up in handcuffs.”
