The Ohio capital will donate $ 5.75 million to nearly three dozen people who were injured in last year’s protests against racial injustice and police brutality following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, announced Thursday lawyers and city officials.
The lawsuit alleges that the Columbus Police response to the protests in late May included under-trained personnel, violated the constitutional rights of protesters, and caused physical harm to protesters due to gross negligence. The file described clashes with police in which protesters were beaten, shot with wooden and rubber bullets and illegally arrested.
Tammy Fournier Alsaada, community activist and lead complainant in the July 2020 trial, was unprovoked with pepper spray after being allowed to walk through a line of police to discuss some arrests, the record shows. Another plaintiff, Terry Hubby Jr., said he was due to undergo surgery, 20 pins and a plate after a non-lethal police projectile shattered his knee during a demonstration on May 29.
At least three of the plaintiffs said they broke their bones during the protests.
The amount of damages paid to each of the 32 injured protesters behind the lawsuit will vary depending on the extent of their individual injuries. Payments will be decided over a series of meetings with the help of a special master hired to review each case, according to senior lawyer John Marshall.
Kyle Robertson/The Columbus Dispatch via AP
The settlement also finalizes details of a federal judge’s ruling earlier this year that ordered Columbus police to stop using non-lethal force such as tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets on nonviolent protesters who don’t hurt people or destroy property.
The regulation announced Thursday “requires that peaceful protesters in the city’s streets and sidewalks may not be subjected to the use of force, arrests or dispersal orders, except in extraordinary circumstances,” he said. said Marshall. It also provides protections for street doctors, journalists and legal observers, he said.
Columbus City Council is expected to approve the financial settlement next week.
Police also testified about chaotic and threatening situations.
“People would come up to us with bottles and open them and throw, like, unknown liquids at us, screaming at us,” Officer Anthony Johnson said, according to court documents.
Gino Brogdon Sr., a retired judge from Georgia, will serve as a special master in determining individual payments. Brogdon also negotiated the historic $ 10 million settlement the city is offering the family of Andre Hill, a black man shot dead a year ago by a Columbus cop as Hill was walking out of a garage with a cell phone. . Adam Coy, the since-fired officer, who is white, has pleaded not guilty to murder and is due to stand trial next year.
The Columbus protests lasted for several days downtown, near Ohio State University, and other parts of the city. On the first night, protesters smashed windows at the Ohio Statehouse and downtown businesses.
In a separate episode, U.S. Representative Joyce Beatty was hit with pepper spray as scuffles broke out near the end of a protest in May.
A report released last spring said Columbus was unprepared for the scale and energy of the protests, and most police felt abandoned by city leaders during this time. The report, commissioned by the city council, also found that the city had no prior plan to handle such protests and suffered from a lack of coordination and even regular communication between city leaders once the protests began. .
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Julie Carr Smyth/AP Photo
This article is being translated automatically. Please let us know if there are any errors.
–
