New York to pay up to $6 million — or $21,000 each — to protesters ‘put down’ or beaten by cops during 2020 demonstration

Under the court settlement, the city will pay $21,500 to each of the more than 300 protesters who were detained by NYPD officers and wrongfully charged with a crime or beaten by police officers during a 2020 demonstration in the Bronx.

The proposed settlement, which must be signed by a federal judge, was published in a class action lawsuit in Manhattan federal court filed by protesters who were “strangled” by NYPD cops during a protest in Mott Haven on June 4, 2020. .

Protesters who were given a turnout ticket after being detained by officers will receive an additional $2,500 under the terms of the settlement.

If Judge Colleen McMahon approves the proposed agreement, the city will have to shell out up to $6 million to protesters.

The protest formed as the coronavirus pandemic raged in the city, and riots spread in cities across the US in response to the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

A few days before the protest, the city had an 8:00 pm curfew, and police detained over 300 protesters that day and waited approximately 10 minutes after 8:00 pm to attack and arrest the demonstrators.

According to the lawsuit, the protesters were handcuffed with zip ties, beaten with police batons and sprayed with pepper spray.

“The NYPD kept people out until curfew, and then used the curfew as an excuse to beat, insult, and arrest people who were peacefully protesting,” Ida Sawyer, acting director of crisis and conflict at Human Rights Watch, who co-wrote the breakup report said a few months after the protest.

“This was a planned operation with no basis in fact that could have cost New York taxpayers millions of dollars,” Sawyer added.

Then-mayor Bill de Blasio largely defended the cops’ tactics after outrage over ketting rose in the months following the incident, but said the NYPD was wrong to arrest legal monitors.

“Two and a half years after the 2020 protests, much of the NYPD’s policy and training on securing large-scale demonstrations has been revised based on the results of the department’s own, self-initiated analysis and recommendations. from three third-party agencies that have been thoroughly investigating this period,” the NYPD said in a statement.

“The NYPD remains committed to continually improving its practices in every way possible,” the department added.