New York City has agreed to a settlement of over $13 million to resolve a civil rights lawsuit representing approximately 1,300 individuals who were either arrested or subjected to police violence during the racial injustice protests that surged through the city in the summer of 2020.
Pending approval from a judge, this settlement, filed in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday, is expected to be one of the largest payouts ever awarded in a lawsuit related to mass arrests, according to experts.
The lawsuit specifically focused on 18 of the numerous protests that erupted in New York City in the week following the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis. As per the terms, with some exceptions, each person arrested or subjected to force by NYPD officers at these events will be eligible for compensation amounting to $9,950, as stated by the plaintiffs’ attorneys.
In addition to other news, this agreement is one of several resulting from the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, enabling the city to avoid a potentially expensive and politically sensitive trial.
Numerous other cities across the U.S. are currently negotiating their own settlements with protesters who took to the streets to denounce racist police brutality after Floyd’s death, resulting in approximately 10,000 arrests in just a few days.
The National Lawyers Guild, representing the plaintiffs in New York, accused NYPD leaders of violating the protesters’ First Amendment rights through a “coordinated” campaign of indiscriminate brutality and unlawful arrests.
Throughout over two years of litigation, the city’s attorneys maintained that police were responding to a chaotic and unprecedented situation, citing some unruly protests where police vehicles were set on fire and officers faced rocks and plastic bottle projectiles.
During certain 2020 protest marches, officers employed a crowd control tactic called “kettling,” which involved confining peaceful protesters in tight spaces and using batons and pepper spray before making mass arrests.
One of the named plaintiffs, Adama Sow, shared that their group of marchers was trapped by police without warning. Sow and the other arrestees were placed in zip ties until their hands turned purple and then confined in a sweltering correctional bus for several hours.
