Four protesters who were jailed for writing anti-police graffiti in chalk on a temporary barricade near a Seattle police precinct have been awarded nearly $700,000 after a federal court jury decided their civil rights were violated.

The Jan. 1, 2021, arrests of the four followed the intense Black Lives Matter protests that rocked Seattle and numerous other cities throughout the world the previous summer in the wake of the death of George Floyd, a Black man. He was killed when a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for about 9 1/2 minutes while Floyd was handcuffed and pleading that he couldn’t breathe.