{"id":121664,"date":"2026-02-23T23:54:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T23:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/121664\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T23:54:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T23:54:11","slug":"quakertown-student-ice-protest-aclu-of-pa-criticizes-police-chief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/121664\/","title":{"rendered":"Quakertown student ICE protest: ACLU of PA criticizes police chief"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aclupa.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania<\/a> alleged Monday that Quakertown Police Chief Scott McElree violated his commitment to \u201cserve and protect\u201d his community during last week\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/6abc.com\/post\/student-walkout-quakertown-pa-ends-arrests-confrontation-police\/18626651\/?fbclid=IwY2xjawQGn7BleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETJBcjFDbXh3STBpUDFNdFJ0c3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHjPggnklCnPXZUTieORxb8oGNyrjm7qCGkUe-Nl36ZKZ-j01k8CF3ZDAcu9I_aem_XJOp7XTvwhtUgLiKOBh3YA\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">student walkout at Quakertown Community High School<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<p>Friday\u2019s protest against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions led to a confrontation between police and students, culminating in the arrest of five teens and one adult.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBy all accounts, including abundant video evidence, there were no issues at the demonstration until Quakertown police arrived and incited violence,\u201d Witold Walczak, legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, said in a statement.\n<\/p>\n<p>WHYY News reached out to the borough and the police department for comment. A police administrator sent a brief statement.\n  <\/p>\n<p>\u201cQuakertown Borough and the Quakertown Police Department are fully cooperating with the Bucks County District Attorney\u2019s Office concerning this investigation,\u201d the statement reads. \u201cUntil this investigation is complete, neither the Borough nor its Police Department will be commenting on this matter.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>About 30 students participated in the walkout Friday, after the school district <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/OfficialQCHS\/posts\/pfbid0qAfFs8WaXnQFVCkUjNCp8rW9FqrptezP7ndfn4EAGQDbnshMcuhYqHyuA9ukJrebl?rdid=G4M2icNCn3dq0OCa#\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">canceled a planned walkout that day<\/a>. Videos <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/articles\/bucks-county-district-attorney-investigation-quakertown-police-student-ice-protest\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">showed officers wrestling students<\/a> to the ground.\n        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania alleged Monday that Quakertown Police Chief Scott McElree violated his commitment&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[43542,57262,28,30,29,5758],"class_list":{"0":"post-121664","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-aclu-of-pennsylvania","9":"tag-ice-protests","10":"tag-pennsylvania","11":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","12":"tag-pennsylvania-news","13":"tag-quakertown"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}