NEW YORK — New York City has agreed to pay more than $13 million to settle a class action lawsuit brought on behalf of approximately 1,300 people who were arrested or beaten by police during protests against racial injustice that swept the city in the summer of 2020.
If approved by a judge, the settlement, which was filed in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday, would see an amount almost never seen awarded in a mass arrest trial, experts say.
The class action has focused on 18 of the many protests that erupted in New York City in the week following the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis.
With certain exceptions, those arrested or subjected to force by NYPD officers during these events will each be entitled to compensation of $9,950, according to plaintiffs’ attorneys.
The agreement, one of many resulting from the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, will allow the City to avoid a lawsuit that could have been both expensive and politically burdensome.
The announcement of the deal came as many other cities across the United States are negotiating their own deals with protesters who have taken to the streets in their thousands to speak out against racist police brutality following the death of George Floyd, a period of unrest that has seen 10,000 people arrested in the space of days.
During some protests in 2020, police deployed a crowd control tactic known as “mousetrap” against peaceful protesters, herding them into tight spaces and attacking them with batons and pepper spray before making mass arrests.
The class action targets former mayor Bill de Blasio, retired police commissioner Dermot Shea and other police chiefs. Under the settlement agreement, neither the city nor the New York police are required to admit wrongdoing.
Protesters who have been arrested on certain charges – including trespassing, destruction of property, assaulting a police officer, arson or possession of weapons – will be excluded from the agreement.
Another class action settlement announced earlier this year will award $21,500 to those arrested by police at a protest in the Bronx, which will amount to approximately $10 million in total, including legal fees.
Separately, more than 600 people have filed individual complaints against New York City related to police actions during the 2020 protests, according to City Comptroller Brad Lander. About half have resulted in settlements and resolutions, costing the city nearly $12 million to date.
2023-07-20 03:51:36
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