Remembrance assembly organizers lauded
Five Pennridge High School students were honored at the March 28 Pennridge Regional Police Commission meeting for having organized the March 14 remembrance assemblies at the school a month after the Feb. 14 shooting that killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
“The horrific act took the precious lives of 14 students and three school staff mem-
bers,” Pennridge Regional Police Chief Rodney Blake said.
“The Pennridge community grieved as the country grieved,” Blake said in presenting Citizen Service Commendations to Pennridge students Holly Files, Emily O’Brien, Jordon Altomare, Sydney Herrmann and Jess Kalams, who was not in attendance for the presentation.
“These students here presented a powerful presentation to students and faculty,” Blake said. “The presentation was moving as it showed each victim and a brief story of who they were and what will be missed about them.
“These here are to be commended for their leadership and willingness to promote change. The Pennridge Regional Police Department would like to honor them with a Citizen Service Commendation
for their act of providing healing, understanding and positive dialogue to the Pennridge Community.”
About 800 students — roughly one third of the school’s enrollment — attended the remembrance assemblies, school officials have said. Another 225 left the building to take part in the National School Walkout, for which those students received Saturday detentions and nationwide attention on social media and in the press. The detentions are for violating school rules against leaving the building without permission during the school day, not a punishment for expressing beliefs or opinions, Pennridge Superintendent Dr. Jacqueline Rattigan has said.
Blake said he met briefly before the commission meeting with some of the students receiving the commendations and their parents, telling them, “Time kind of erodes and heals things, as it should, especially Parkland, but time shouldn’t allow this to subside.”
There’s been good dialogue, he said, and there are pieces that have to be connected, such as school safety, the Second Amendment and mental health aspects of the shooting.
“I said, ‘Keep it going,’” Blake said he told the students. “You guys did great.”
Resident Gary Berger also received a Citizen Service Commendation at the meeting, with his presented
for his assistance during the March 2 snowstorm.
“For emergency responders, the events of the day were extremely dangerous and stressful,” Blake said.
The storm downed trees and utility poles and led to disabled motorists and traffic crashes, he said.
“Where most people would continue driving by disabled motorists, Gary Berger took action and got involved,” Blake said, calling it a display of bravery and courage.
Blake said he came upon Berger pulling a stuck car out of the snow at Allentown Road and Camp Rockhill Road, after which Berger volunteered to follow Blake and pulled out several other stuck vehicles.
“He lived right there. He could’ve went home, but he continued down with me,” Blake said, “and I really appreciate it.”
Resident Michael Schrameyer thanked Berger for what he’d done and said another resident, Chad Davis, helped neighbors stuck on hills on Sterner’s, Finland and Allentown roads.
“He’d go down to the bottom, find out who was stuck in the parking lot at the bottom and then he’d plow their way up to their house,” Schrameyer said.
The winter weather also brought a Citizen Praise submitted through the department’s Pennridgepd. org website. The praise was for Off. Rick Dean and came from a parent whose daughter’s vehicle got stuck
on the road after leaving school during a snow storm, Blake said.
“Officer Dean helped to dig out the car and jumped her car,” Blake read from the parent’s comments. “He was extremely helpful and kind.”
Commission member and West Rockhill Township Board of Supervisors member Jay Keyser added a thanks for Officer Steve DiGiovanni for his help in getting a tow truck for a West Rockhill Township truck stuck from a downed tree during a snow storm.
The township called for tow trucks, but was unable to get one, he said.
“Everybody was booked solid,” Keyser said.
DiGiovanni suggested another company that came and got the truck out, he said.
“If it wouldn’t have been for him, that truck would’ve sat there all weekend,” Keyser said.
The department also received a praise for Officer Samantha Adams and Sgt. Tim Maloney, Blake said. That one came from Bucks County Deputy Sheriff Thomas O’Neill for the officers’ work in the investigation of the May 2017 crash on Route 313 in East Rockhill that killed Bucks County Deputy Sheriff Keith Clymer. Harry Burak, 28, of East Rockhill, whose driver’s license had been permanently revoked after four previous driving under the influence convictions, was sentenced March 6 to six
years and six months to 23 years and nine months in state prison followed by 10 years of probation after pleading guilty to crimes including homicide by vehicle while driving under the influence in the crash.
Clymer, 48, of Kintnersville, who was off duty at the time of the crash, was killed instantly when his 2006 Honda motorcycle slammed into the side of Burak’s 2017 Dodge Ram 5500 truck when Burak pulled into Clymer’s path, investigators said. Clymer, whose speed was calculated at between 86 and 94 miles per hour, was turning left into his driveway, investigators said. His blood alcohol concentration was registered at 0.18 percent, investigators said.
In his letter, O’Neill said he thinks there may not have been a guilty plea in the case if it hadn’t been for the work by Adams and Maloney.