PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The first of five high school protesters detained for days in Pennsylvania after a scuffle with an older man who turned out to be the local police chief entered a probationary program designed to spare him a criminal record.
Three other Quakertown teens delayed their juvenile court hearings in suburban Bucks County on Friday, while a lawyer for the fifth wants the assault charges dropped entirely.
“I think the way these kids have been persecuted for protesting and speaking their minds is absolutely shameful,” lawyer Ettore “Ed” Angelo said before a Friday afternoon hearing for his client, a 15-year-old girl.
The teens, most of them children of color, spent four to eight days in detention after the Feb. 20 scrum and were put on house arrest, with ankle monitors, for a month. The police response to the anti-ICE protests, captured on video, has led to fiery town meetings in predominantly white Quakertown, while the 72-year-old police chief — who also serves as borough manager — has gone on medical leave.
Angelo’s 80-pound client is charged with felony assault for striking the stocky police chief, Scott McElree, on the shoulder as he put his arm around the neck of another teen girl and fell with her to the ground. McElree is under investigation by the county prosecutor, but remains the named victim in the juvenile cases. Angelo wants more time to investigate before weighing any potential settlement offers.
“These kids are being taught that we have two systems of justice. There’s one system for those with power and wealth. And then there’s the other system for those who have neither,” he said.
The Quakertown Community High School students had planned a school-approved walkout against U.S. immigration enforcement policies, like others held across the country this year, before the school canceled the plan that day over safety concerns. About 35 students instead began a one-mile loop through town. They were followed by other students in cars, with opposing views, who harassed them, defense lawyers have said.
About 10 of them were gathered outside a bakery when McElree, in street clothes, rushed into the fray, according to video posted to social media. A few students fought with him as he put his arm around the girl’s neck. She is one of the teens whose cases were postponed Friday.
They were all charged with both felony assault, because of McElree’s position, and lesser charges. Some residents have called for him to resign, both in emotional town meetings and petitions circulating online.
McElree has not returned messages left this past month at his home and office, and his lawyer did not immediately return a message Friday seeking comment. A spokesperson for District Attorney Joe Khan said only that its investigation of the police response was ongoing.
The high school junior put on probation Friday, whose name has not been made public, will have the arrest expunged if he completes six months of probation. He is an American child of immigrants who hopes to serve in the military, his lawyer Donald Souders said. His glasses were broken in the melee, and he spent four days in detention trying to remove glass particles from his eye.
The case, Souders said, mirrors the sharp discord in American society. And instead of police de-escalating the situation, “things were allowed to get to a fever pitch,” he said.
“These kids had the courage and the heart to care enough to go out and protest,” Souders said Friday. “The police chief apparently was there watching the protests along the route. He did nothing to stop the anti-protesters who were harassing (them), who were using racial slurs, using veiled threats against the kids. He did nothing.”
Quakertown is about 40 miles north of Philadelphia.
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