New York City’s Costly Concession: $13 Million Settlement for Rioters Raises Concerns
In a rather controversial move, New York City has reached a landmark settlement of over $13 million to resolve a civil rights lawsuit brought on behalf of approximately 1,300 individuals who faced arrests or police brutality during the 2020 racial injustice protests that swept the city.
The lawsuit focused on 18 of the numerous protests that erupted in the wake of George Floyd’s killing by a police officer in Minneapolis.
If approved by a judge, this settlement, filed in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday, would stand among the largest payouts ever awarded in a mass arrest lawsuit, according to experts.
The agreement comes as a significant relief for the city, enabling it to avoid a potentially costly and politically sensitive trial.
Numerous cities across the United States are currently negotiating their own settlements with protesters who took to the streets to condemn racist police brutality following Floyd’s death, looting and burning down thousands of businesses.
The ensuing riots resulted in around 10,000 arrests within a few days.
Under this agreement, individuals arrested or subjected to police force during the specified protests will be eligible for compensation of $9,950 each, with certain exceptions.
The settlement is a result of legal action taken by the National Lawyers Guild, which represented the plaintiffs and accused NYPD leaders of violating the protesters’ First Amendment rights through indiscriminate brutality and unjust arrests.
During the 2020 protests, some officers used a crowd control tactic known as kettling against peaceful demonstrators, forcibly corralling them and resorting to batons and pepper spray before conducting mass arrests.
Named plaintiff Adama Sow recounted being trapped without warning, held in zip ties until hands turned purple, and detained in a sweltering correctional bus for hours, describing the actions as disorganized yet intentional.
The city’s defense invoked qualified immunity, protecting police officers from lawsuits arising from lawful duties performed in the line of duty, and justified the decision to arrest medics and legal observers as within the department’s rights.
While the plaintiffs’ attorneys pointed to past crackdowns on large demonstrations as evidence of systemic violations by the NYPD, the city’s legal team denied any systematic effort to deprive people of their right to protest.
The settlement does not require the city or the NYPD to admit any wrongdoing.
Excluded from the settlement are protesters arrested on certain charges, including trespassing, property destruction, assaulting an officer, arson, or weapons possession, as well as those seen on video blocking police from making arrests.
Unlike some other lawsuits stemming from the 2020 protests, this class action was not aimed at forcing the NYPD to change its practices.
Instead, several other ongoing lawsuits seek injunctive relief, including one initiated by New York Attorney General Letitia James, which calls for federal monitoring of the NYPD’s policing of protests.
This settlement adds to the already gigantic financial burden on taxpayers, a red flag for city leaders about the NYPD’s longstanding issue with constitutionally compliant protest policing.
The arc of the moral universe may be long, but as attorney Wylie Stecklow puts it, reform is needed to bend it towards justice.
And as usual, ‘reform’ means taking more money from the taxpaying public.
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NBC News
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