The Bucks County District Attorney’s Office’s much anticipated report into Quakertown police response during a student-led ICE protest included new details uncovered during the six-month investigation.
DA Joe Khan announced Aug. 3 that his office will not prosecute any police officers or additional student protesters for their actions during the demonstration that turned violent in the borough’s downtown business district on Feb. 20.
The investigation concluded that police, including Chief Scott McElree, 72, did not use improper or excessive force against some of the 40 high school protesters who walked out of Quakertown Community High School after a planned on-campus rally was canceled because of a threat of violence.
The DA’s report criticized McElree’s conduct and decisions, which investigators concluded acted as the catalyst for the peaceful protest turning to physical confrontations when, in plain clothes, he charged into a group of students to detain a protester. Those actions were not, however, criminal, Khan found.
The chief and two other officers were injured in the ensuing melee, as well as four of the five student protesters, who were arrested, charged as juveniles, and entered a trial diversion program, according to the report.
Here are seven new pieces of information about the protest contained in the 20-page district attorney report:
Counter-protesters were not Quakertown High School students
The investigation found that student protestors were accosted by counter-protesters in multiple pickup trucks apparently occupied by students who yelled bigoted slurs and phrases such as “deport them” while blasting loud horns and revving their engines.
Investigators identified some of the occupants of the vehicles and interviewed five. Detectives learned they were students who attended other schools, with most attending the Upper Bucks County Technical School in the afternoon.
“These students indicated they wished to express pro-ICE sentiment, with one of the students interviewed indicating that they ‘didn’t go to cause harm’ in following the anti-ICE protestors but went to ‘mess with them.’”
No evidence Scott McElree identified himself as law enforcement during protest
Videos of the student-police encounter do not indicate that McElree audibly identified himself as the police chief or law enforcement or displayed any badge, investigators said.
“There is no video or eyewitness evidence to corroborate that McElree ever identified himself as the chief of police or a member of law enforcement generally at any time during the incident in front of Sunday’s Deli and Restaurant,” according to the report findings.
McElree wrote in police incident reports involving the protest that he repeatedly identified himself as law enforcement before the melee and earlier when he was following protesters in his unmarked SUV.
Investigators found that as McElree moved through the crowd, he grabbed the arm of a male juvenile who appeared to be standing in front of a juvenile girl police wanted to detain. The male then started hitting McElree with his cellphone and other protesters started hitting McElree.
In his incident report, Det. Sgt. Chris Grill indicated that when he informed another juvenile male that he had just punched the chief of police, the boy responded with apparent shock and immediately became compliant, the report said.
“This reaction was consistent with other student protesters who were unaware that McElree was a police officer until after uniformed officers arrived to assist him,” the report said.
Scott McElree may have restrained the wrong juvenile protester
The DA report concluded that McElree may have mistaken a 15-year-old female protester, who wore a Puerto Rico flag around her shoulders like a cape for a different 15-year-old female protester who wore the flag of El Salvador around her shoulders.
The girl who was restrained and her attorney maintain that she did not assault McElree, and the chief assaulted her.
Investigators found no video footage of the girl wearing the Puerto Rico flag assaulting McElree before he grabbed her.
The body-worn camera footage from a Quakertown police officer at the scene appears to show the girl with the Puerto Rico flag briefly swinging her arm at an officer while shouting “get off me” just before McElree first placed his arm around her neck, the report found.
“Our investigation was inconclusive as to exactly why McElree used force against Juvenile 2 (wearing the Puerto Rico flag) (given that his purported goal was to arrest Juvenile 1, wearing the El Salvador flag) and why he tried to restrain Juvenile 2 by the neck (rather than the hands or wrists),” the report said.
McElree’s incident report indicated he grabbed the girl because he believed she had assaulted him and obstructed his efforts to arrest the juvenile wearing the El Salvador flag, who police were initially attempting to detain.
Investigators suggested it was possible that McElree was too disoriented as a result of a concussion he suffered in the assault to distinguish one student from the other, according to the report.
An outside use-of-force expert retained as part of the DA investigation found no evidence the girl suffered any injury consistent with a neck restraint.
The expert’s review did not take a specific position on the truthfulness of McElree’s assertion that his intent in putting his arms around the girl’s neck was to “protect her head when we hit the ground.”
The recording of McElree with his arm around the neck of a protester lasted longer than previously believed
The Police Chiefs’ Association of Bucks County in April issued an after-action report that concluded McElree’s use of force with the girl was justified based on what it described as a screenshot from a video clip “lasting less than two seconds.”
But the DA review obtained additional videos of the confrontation that when viewed collectively showed that McElree’s arm was around the teen protester’s neck for at least eight seconds.
An adult bystander was attempting to help the students
An adult man who had been dining at Sunday’s Deli, twice intervened and attempted to separate McElree and two female protesters.
The man told police he pulled McElree off the 15-year-old girl he was restraining around her neck and bear hugged McElree from behind, according to the report. He also pulled McElree off a second juvenile after a confrontation knocked the protester and the chief to the ground.
Quakertown detained the man, but ultimately released him without filing charges.
The man, who was interviewed by Quakertown Police and County Detectives, said he was not aware at the time that McElree was the chief of police and it was his intention to break up the fight.
The version of events contradicts what Quakertown police stated in incident reports that the adult man was attempting to help McElree by “shielding the chief with his whole body.”
There is no universal prohibition on law enforcement use of neck restraint techniques in Bucks County
Neither Quakertown Police Department policy nor Pennsylvania law outlaws or restricts the use of chokeholds or other neck restraints by law enforcement to gain control of a subject.
Bucks County’s 39 police departments voluntarily agreed in 2020 to adopt into their policies 15 use-of-force guidelines put forth by the the Police Chiefs Association of Bucks County. The standards including one that barred the use of techniques that restrain oxygen intake.
Quakertown is among the departments that did not adopt the policies, and since there was no existing regulation, McElree did not violate department policy.
No evidence that McElree was ‘immersed in the protest from the beginning as a counter-protester’
McElree was on duty that day, monitoring the protest in an unmarked vehicle and there is nothing that shows McElree encouraged the counter-protestors and agitators.
County detectives interviewed five counter-protestors who said they had no association with the Quakertown Police or McElree.
“Based on our investigation, it is possible that those alleging McElree was affiliated with the counter-protestors may have confused McElree’s vehicle with that of a counter-protestor whose pickup truck had a light bar on the top of its cab,” the report said.
