‘Quakertown 5’ lawyers want Bucks County DA to hand off police probe

An attorney for the Quakertown high school students arrested in a recent protest has asked the Bucks County District Attorney to turn over the investigation into the police response to an outside agency.

Attorneys are also seeking the immediate dismissal of charges against the students, arguing that they acted in self-defense and defense of others against Quakertown Police Chief Scott McElree, who they allege escalated the police confrontation leading to the violence and student arrests.

“There exist no facts supporting criminal intent nor knowledge by the juvenile defendants, including my client, that Mr. McElree was a police officer acting within his official duties when he bull-rushed into a group of high-schoolers,” wrote attorney Donald Souders, who represents a 16-year-old boy who is charged.

On Feb. 27, the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office declined to comment beyond that its independent investigation into the police response is underway, citing the case as a juvenile court matter.

Also on Friday, the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General rejected the attorney’s request to intervene in the investigation, saying that the office lacks jurisdiction and it would be “inappropriate for our office to engage further on it.”

In an email Friday evening, Souders said Khan could still release responsiblity of the investigation to the state agency.

Known collectively as the “Quakertown 5,” the teens all face felony aggravated assault and other lesser charges. They were among at least 35 teens who participated in the Feb. 20 off-campus protest after a student-led on-campus walkout was canceled at the last minute over threats of violence.

Police, who were monitoring the protest at a distance, allege that some participants were disruptive before the police confrontation, kicking tires, throwing snowballs at vehicles and walking in traffic, though no video or other recorded images have surfaced as of Feb. 27 supporting those allegations.

Witnesses, protesters and an abundance of cellphone video recordings shared on social media have alleged that the march turned violent after McElree showed up and charged into protesters in an attempt to detain a student who an officer alleged had repeatedly walked in the road during the protest.

In response, multiple teen protesters physically attempted to remove McElree from the 15-year-old girl, and then came to the defense of another boy, who was attempting to help the girl.

McElree, 72, was treated at a hospital for facial and rib injuries, according to the affidavit. The Quakertown solicitor confirmed Feb. 27 he is out on workers’ compensation leave.

In a cellphone video posted on social media, McElree, his face bloodied, is heard telling another officer that he is “fine.”

Attorneys for the students, three girls and two boys, allege that their clients were injured in the melee. The teens were arrested and charged as juveniles.

The last two were released from juvenile detention Feb. 26, two days after the others were released, according to their lawyers.

An adult man also taken into custody that day for physically attempting to remove McElree from a teen girl, according to the affidavit, will not face criminal charges, the DA’s office confirmed. Neither the DA or police have said why he was not charged.

McElree, who is also the borough’s manager, has faced scrutiny for his actions at the protest, as critics have said he showed up in plain clothes in an unmarked SUV and didn’t identify himself as law enforcement before he confronted students.

McElree has not spoken publicly or returned requests for comment since Feb. 20.

In multiple rallies community members have called for McElree to step down or be removed, with efforts including a change.org petition that had collected more than 11,000 signatures as of Feb. 27.

Community members and attorneys for the students contend that McElree used excessive force, an apparent violation of county use-of-force standards, when he allegedly placed a 15-year-old girl in a chokehold and took her to the ground, and also manhandled other students.

A ban on the use of “any technique restricting the intake of oxygen for the purpose of gaining control of a subject unless deadly force is reasonably necessary” was among the 15 use-of-force guidelines Bucks County’s 39 police departments adopted in 2020 in response to the death of George Floyd in Minnesota.

Souders contended that McElree “appeared as a private citizen not a member of law enforcement” when he confronted students, who had been followed and taunted by counterprotesters in vehicles during their march into the downtown business district.

“They thought it was a nut job that jumped out of the cars that were following them. They were defending their friend,” Souders said in an interview. “They really, truly didn’t know him.”

In one of the cellphone videos widely shared on social media, a police officer is heard telling the adult man who was arrested that the person he jumped on was the police chief.

Likewise, cellphone video of his client, who was thrown into a large planter and taken to the ground by a uniformed police officer, shows that he did not know McElree was a police officer, Souders said.

“The officer can be heard yelling at my client, who was totally compliant and nonresistant, ‘Don’t you know who that is?’ My client, dumbfounded and scared, replied, ‘No … who is it?’” Souder wrote. “Not a single teenaged high school ‘protester’ knew who he was nor can it be suggested with a straight face that they should have known he was a police officer.”

Souders argued in the letter that Khan’s office should not be the one investigating the police response when the office has identified McElree as a victim for purposes of charging the students.

Attorney Ettore “Ed” Angelo, who represents another 15-year-old female student, on Friday agreed that Khan’s office has an “obvious and unacceptable conflict of interest.”

Angelo added that he has never seen a “clearer case” of self-defense and defense of others in his legal career.

“It’s wrong what happened here. (McElree) created the whole thing,”  Angelo said in an interview. “These kids are just protesting and he escalated it to a ridiculous level.”