Racial Justice

In December of 2020, a McKeesport police officer was shot while in pursuit of a suspect. The suspect was an individual who was well-known to McKeesport police. As they called in reinforcements from other police departments across the county, McKeesport police began an aggressive manhunt that intentionally and unconstitutionally targeted and terrorized Black residents.

The city of McKeesport and its police department have agreed to settle a lawsuit over the violation of numerous Black residents’ Fourth Amendment rights and the Pennsylvania Constitution during a police search for a shooting suspect.

The decision to end the lawsuit comes as Montgomery County has made meaningful progress in reforming its probation and parole revocation system.

Are you concerned about recent federal actions and what they mean for DEI in PA schools? We respond to some of the many questions and concerns we’ve heard from our schools and parents about recent federal executive actions.

In October 2021, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Pennsylvania filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of six plaintiffs, challenging the unconstitutional incarceration of people facing probation and parole revocation proceedings in Montgomery County. The lawsuit alleged that the county continued to violate both the Pennsylvania Constitution and the United States Constitution by incarcerating nearly every person accused of violating the conditions of their supervision for months until their revocation hearing and asked that Montgomery County hold prompt revocation hearings to assess probable cause and whether detention is necessary and appropriate, and that the court provide whatever relief it deems necessary to the class of plaintiffs named in the challenge. In January 2026, the ACLU and ACLU-PA dismissed the lawsuit in the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania against Montgomery County after the county implemented a number of reforms to its probation and parole system. Since the lawsuit was announced, Montgomery County has created a Detention Hearing Officer ("DHO") program that has addressed many of the violations that prompted the lawsuit. Although Montgomery County’s policies on criminal legal reform are by no means perfect, a review of county data since the implementation of the DHO program shows that Montgomery County has provided detention hearings within five business days for 95% of cases with a scheduled detention hearing — a significant improvement from where the county was before.