Wrong lesson
Quakertown’s response to Friday’s student walkout is a disgrace. When teenagers leave school to protest, the role of police is to protect life and de-escalate. Keep students out of traffic, keep bystanders safe, and help everyone get home. It is not to turn a civic act into a street fight. Videos and witness accounts from Quakertown show a chaotic, physical confrontation between officers and students, exactly the kind of escalation law enforcement should be trained to prevent. Even if some students acted irresponsibly, adults with badges are held to a higher standard. Force against minors should be the last resort, not the first tool.
Most alarming is that detained students were held through the weekend. That is punitive, unnecessary, and indefensible. These are children. They should have been released immediately to their families. Bucks County’s independent investigation must be thorough, transparent, and swift. But the moral line is already clear. Quakertown’s young people deserved calm supervision and guidance. They got aggression and detention.
Brandon McNeice, head of school and CEO, Cornerstone Christian Academy, Philadelphia
Using kid gloves
Being a police officer is difficult. It comes with risk, demands courage, and requires split-second decision-making. Policing youth is even more difficult. One would then assume that this incredibly difficult assignment would be subject to intense training and that clear standards would exist to guide every interaction. Unfortunately, when it comes to policing youth, that is not the case. The typical law enforcement officer, at most, receives several hours of training directed at juvenile law.
But how many of them train on the developmental differences between adults and young people? Not near enough. To the detriment of both the community and the officer, these interactions are ripe for undesirable, yet predictable, outcomes. There is no dispute that youth are different from adults. We all know this. That is not political or controversial. Yet, as a community, we have not required change. Maybe the recent events in Quakertown are enough to demand it. We do not accept other professional specialties to just figure it out with kids; we shouldn’t with police, either. Not for them, and not for us.
Anthony V. Pierro, executive director, Strategies for Youth, Raleigh, N.C.
Voting issues
A recent Inquirer article regarding U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick addressing the voting issues in Chester County last year states there is “no evidence that voters were turned away,” yet also reports that some voters “voluntarily left” when their names were missing from the pollbook. That may be legally accurate if provisional ballots were offered. But if an eligible voter shows up, can’t find their name, and leaves without voting — for any reason — the system did not function as it should. The issue isn’t only whether anyone was formally denied. It’s whether the process worked smoothly and clearly for every voter. In a less affluent area, where voters may not be able to return later, the outcome could reasonably be viewed as disenfranchisement. Technical compliance matters. So does operational competence.
Jeffrey Williams, Malvern
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