At least five high school students in Quakertown, located in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, have now been held in police custody for more than 72 hours following last Friday’s anti-ICE protest. As of this writing, authorities have not publicly clarified how many students remain detained, what specific charges they face, or why juveniles are being held for this length of time.

Their alleged offense: defending themselves after a police chief, not in uniform, physically assaulted students. The police assault has provoked mass outrage in the community and throughout the country. A Change.org petition demanding the resignation of Quakertown Police Chief Scott McElree, who was captured on video choking a young female student, has exceeded 7,800 signatures as of this writing.

  • caboose2006@lemmy.world
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    1 hour ago

    It’s so refreshing seeing sane comments, instead of people commenting “well what happened before the video? Why was that girl singled out? What did SHE do?” As if the answer to any of those questions justifies her getting tackled and choked.

  • BananaIsABerry@lemmy.zip
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    9 hours ago

    A cop attacking young, impressionable teens who already have a distaste for police authority seems like a great way to get people to like cops.

  • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
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    11 hours ago

    A Change.org petition demanding the resignation of Quakertown Police Chief Scott McElree, who was captured on video choking a young female student, has exceeded 7,800 signatures as of this writing.

    Oh, yeah I got a feeling this is why we don’t see more resistance. Not sure why in light of all that is going on anyone would think a non binding petition ran by a company would be the appropriate response to (in plain view) the head of local law enforcement choking out a child then when the children stop the assault round them all up and disappear them.

    • Virtvirt588@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      Regular people of america have lost nearly all their bargaining power. I certainly do agree, that this petition will do barely anything considering the history with similar scenarios. At this point, it is like holding to a false promise.

      Another thing is, let’s not infantilize individuals within these situations. They are not a child. And in essence, age has no meaning here, criminal scum like this will assault anyone who opposes them.

      Its just sad that the regular people have to live in opression. At this point it doesnt matter what race you are, but if you’re a straight up Nazi or not.

      • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
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        5 hours ago

        Another thing is, let’s not infantilize individuals within these situations. They are not a child. And in essence, age has no meaning here, criminal scum like this will assault anyone who opposes them.

        The young woman in the choke hold is in high school and a child.

  • EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com
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    22 hours ago

    “Why aren’t people reproducing anymore?”

    Exhibit <too many to fucking count at this point>

    No reproduction for nations that demonstrate such brazen disregard for their own people.

  • qprimed@lemmy.ml
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    1 day ago

    forearm position in that capture is about half an inch away from “crush the trachea” compliance and a mile away from “control the head, neck and blood supply” compliance. this is battery with intent to cause severe bodily harm.

    • mx_smith@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      Someone should have nelt on his neck while in that position. Give him the ole George Floyd. Bucks County is such a shit hole county.

    • PolarKraken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      22 hours ago

      What an embarrassing coward. Bet he gets his bitch ass destroyed by anyone remotely competent he ever trains/rolls with, such weak loser energy on display here.

      [Edit: he’s panicking and going hard (way too hard) cuz he loses all the time - for his brain it’s “hell yeah, finally sinking this choke I’ve been working on!, damn felt easy this time!” Utterly shameful. Kill this man, he is far, far worse than useless. Give this dude an honorary Uvalde Award, if nothing else.]

  • hector@lemmy.today
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    1 day ago

    Those students need to say the words habeous corpus, they need to write those words and mail them to the court, and they need to get their friends and family to press those words onto the courts, the police, and the media, and social media.

    If you hold someone, you have to charge them in front of a judge. They will give leeway on a weekend, friday night you might have to wait until monday morning which is bad enough. But going through a work day that the court is in session without honoring habeous corpus is a violation of the Bill of Rights, and should get the case dismissed if they do try to file charges.

    This chief needs to be fired, and charged. He sounds like he’s refusing to honor the Bill of Rights out of a personal grudge after assaulting them when he was off duty. Clown show.

  • Phoenixz
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    1 day ago

    What is it with the US and so many people being perfectly okay with your woman being strangled by police just and only because she spoke out and protested?

    If in Europe an not uniformed police officer were to pull this shit, strangling a young girl whilst not even being on duty, it would be his last day on the job and his first day in jail. In the US though, all the witnesses (all children) are abducted and threatened and somehow people support this?

    And the community? This psychopath just strangled a young girl for not liking her opinion. He’s a police chief. Not a police officer, he is a police chief. If I were a police officer I would have arrested the fucker myself, because he’s a low life thug criminal.

    But this is the USA, so they make psychopaths police chiefs because of course they do. Om just flabbergasted that any of this is even remotely possible, and then trump tells other countries that this, THIS, is what everyone wants?

    Get fucked by an umbrella, pigs

    • Professorozone@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Your outrage is both understandable and agreed with but I’m pretty sure most people in the US are NOT ok with this and think he should lose his job and go to jail. And I’m pretty sure there is a larger percentage of people in Europe who WOULD be ok with this behavior than you think.

      Unfortunately the majority of people who go into law enforcement seem to be quite authoritarian. They seem to enjoy breaking the law while enforcing their own personal version of it, with impunity. I have lived in Europe but never had an interaction with law enforcement, but I would doubt that they are all angels in Europe. I think it’s a matter of degree. Europe has had plenty of experience with fascism. Just because it’s America’s turn doesn’t make Europe immune to it.

    • TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today
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      1 day ago

      I think your issue is that you are perceiving them as government workers. In reality they are violent gangs with the backing of the judiciary system and state representatives.

      The entire purpose of police in America has always been to protect property and to oppress minority groups. They are the evolution of slave hunters and mercenary groups like the Pinkertons. The monied class of America just found a way to socialize their monopoly on violence.

    • ScrooLewse@lemmy.myserv.one
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      22 hours ago

      Yeah so the issue is that our police have been militarizing and their unions have been persistently dismantling accountability laws since the 80’s, using racist propaganda as cover for their actions. Now that it’s fully mask-off, it’s less, “what’s the community going to think about this” and more “what can the community even do about it?”

      The white population of this country has not only allowed, but quietly encouraged, the stripping away of every safeguard we have against our police because they never thought it would be used against them. They were told that racial minorities were going to pillage and rape their uncanny white picket suburbs and remote podunk towns any day now, and that the only law enforcement could save them. But only if it was unchained from any sort of safeguards previously installed on it and given the proper tools of pillage.

      So, like, we’re fucked I think. We have a VERY long and painful road ahead of us if we’re going to dismantle all these violent gangs we’ve embedded in our government.

      • mrgoosmoos
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        5 hours ago

        dude got beat up by high school students

        doesn’t seem like it would be that difficult to get him into a guillotine

        • ScrooLewse@lemmy.myserv.one
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          4 hours ago

          Individually, they’re dumb, out of shape, and, if you’ve been paying much attention, pretty cowardly. So yes, a single cop is fucking joke. But as a group they’re better-armed than many militaries, are legally protected from the VAST majority of their own crimes, and have an insane culture of solidarity not only internally, but with the moneyed class.

          You fuck with that loser once and you’re inviting a team of violent idiots and a judge to legally fuck with you the rest of your life. You actively defend yourself from that team of violent idiots and a judge in turn, and I am not exaggerating when I say you’re inviting a militarized response. There’s a reason that so many of our cops can get away with being so mean, dumb, and weak.

          • mrgoosmoos
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            3 hours ago

            true

            however, you get those things the way things are going anyways, so…

            • ScrooLewse@lemmy.myserv.one
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              3 hours ago

              Realistically, our local and federal law enforcement has always been like this. See: Blair Mountain, Black Wall Street, the Jim Crow South, the post-Jim Crow South, any of the L.A. Riots, Ruby Ridge, the entire history of the Texas Rangers, COINTELPRO, Black Lives Matter, or the life and times of J Edgar Hoover, just off the top of my head.

              The only difference right now is that we’ve let it get so out of control that now the average white American are getting caught in the collateral of what is otherwise standard operations. So now it gets treated as unique. But it’s the same shit as always, just bigger.

  • resipsaloquitur@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    A Change.org petition demanding the resignation of Quakertown Police Chief Scott McElree, who was captured on video choking a young female student, has exceeded 7,800 signatures as of this writing.

    Why isn’t he in jail?

    • RagingRobot@lemmy.world
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      21 hours ago

      If change.org ran the government maybe that would mean something.

      I feel like those online petitions make it easier to stay home instead of showing up outside the police station and demanding change

      Also you get a ton of spam

    • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      I’m going to ask a stupider question. Why haven’t the parents killed him outright? It’s not the smart thing to do but I’ve seen some parents lose their everloving shit over much smaller stuff than this. It’s wild to me that he can do that and not get the hell beat out of him at the least.

    • Zink@programming.dev
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      4 hours ago

      There’s a reason they call it Pennsyltucky!

      If you embark on the long journey between the Pittsburgh and Philly ends of the state, you get to see a nice assortment of insane religious/conservative billboards and homemade Trump displays.

  • Phoenixz
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    1 day ago

    Why isn’t this police chief being publicly hanged like they used to do before with black pe… Oh wait, the guy is white. Never mind then.

    This is the USA, where guys can strangle girls with zero consequences for as long as they are white and carry a badge