NYC to Pay Record Settlement to George Floyd Protesters
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Protesters who were restrained with zip ties, battered with batons, and pepper sprayed will be paid millions in a new settlement reached with New York City and the NYPD.
According to documents filed in federal court on Tuesday, the city has agreed to pay out a total of $7 million to the protesters, which comes out to $21,500 each, the highest per-person settlement award in a mass arrest class action lawsuit.
On June 4, 2020, about 300 people marched through the Bronx to protest the killing of George Floyd. According to a lawsuit, as an 8 p.m. curfew approached, police used their bicycles to form a wall and prevent the protesters from moving forward, while other officers pushed from behind – a tactic known as “kettling.”
Just after the 8 p.m. curfew, “the police moved in on the protesters, unprovoked and without warning, whaling their batons, beating people from car tops, shoving them down to the ground, and firing pepper spray in their faces,” according to a Human Rights Watch report.
Bill de Blasio had instituted the curfew just one night before and argued in an emergency executive order that it was “necessary to protect the City and its residents from severe endangerment and harm to their health, safety and property.”
Several protesters filed an initial complaint against de Blasio, the city of New York and NYPD officials in October 2020. De Blasio was dismissed from the suit in 2021, according to the Washington Post, but the case against the NYPD and city continued for two years.
“The highest levels of the NYPD coordinated a pre-planned assault on peaceful protesters, and we’re gratified that this historic settlement will provide some measure of justice to those who suffered from this brutality. We hope this historic award forces the City to finally account for how it polices peaceful demonstrations,” plaintiffs’ attorney Ali Frick said in a statement.
The New York Police Department explained in a statement that the demonstration came at a challenging time for officers, who “were suffering under the strains of a global pandemic” and had to balance protestors’ rights with public safety.
“Two-and-a-half years after the protests of 2020, much of the NYPD’s policies and training for policing large-scale demonstrations have been re-envisioned based on the findings of the department’s own, self-initiated analyses and on the recommendations from three outside agencies who carefully investigated that period,” read the statement.
In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, rampant looting and rioting broke out across New York City, damaging an estimated 450 businesses, according to city officials.
Then-NYPD commissioner Dermott Shea vigorously defended the officers’ actions at the time, saying the kettling maneuver was executed “nearly flawlessly” and blaming “outside agitators” for instigating violence.
