To resolve a lawsuit filed by demonstrators who claimed that police used the “kettling” tactic to harass, mistreat, and imprison them during a protest following the death of George Floyd, New York City has agreed to pay several million dollars.
At least 200 demonstrators detained, arrested, or dealt with physically by police during a rally on June 4, 2020, in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx, will receive $21,500 from the city, according to court documents filed late on Tuesday.
The cost of the class-action lawsuit might be up to $10 million or more, according to the city, which also stated it would pay $21,500 per plaintiff for legal fees and an additional $2,500 to protestors who received court appearance tickets.
The agreement is still subject to judicial approval. Plaintiffs’ attorneys hailed it as a “historic accord” and stated they thought it would be the city’s highest per-person settlement in a mass arrest class-action lawsuit.
The lawsuit is among many claiming NYPD officers abused demonstrators who took to the streets every evening after police killed Floyd in Minnesota on May 25, 2020. Similar demonstrations took place in US cities and villages.
The NYPD received criticism for kettling protesters in the Mott Haven demonstration, effectively confining them and forcing them to violate the city’s curfew to quiet disturbance.
“The brutality unleashed upon us that night was intentional, unjustifiable, and will stay with me for the rest of my life,” plaintiff Henry Wood said in a statement released through lawyers.
“What the NYPD did was an egregious misuse of authority, assisted by the political forces of New York City.”
Joshua Moskovitz, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, claimed that the NYPD’s conduct in Mott Haven was comparable to ” Bloody Sunday,” an incident in which police beat civil rights protestors on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in 1965.
Moskovitz stated, “We hope this settlement signals a turning point for enforcement in New York City.
The COVID-19 pandemic-related protests were described as a “difficult situation” by the NYPD in a statement.
According to the NYPD, “Much of the policies and training for policing large-scale demonstrations have been re-envisioned based on the findings of the department’s self-initiated analyses and on the recommendations from three outside agencies which carefully investigated that period,” the department said.
The NYPD is still devoted to making every effort to improve its procedures.
In a report published in October 2020, the human rights group Human Rights Watch cited evidence that the police had prepared a violent response to the Mott Haven demonstrators.
Police used bicycles to surround protestors as they were attacked by cops, some of whom were wearing riot gear, who beat them with batons, kicked and punched them, and pepper sprayed them, according to the report.
At least 61 people suffered bruises, black eyes, broken noses, missing teeth, dislocated shoulders, fractured fingers, split lips, and broken fingers.
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