The city will pay $21,500 to each of the more than 300 protesters who were confined by NYPD officers and unlawfully charged with a crime or beaten by cops during a 2020 demonstration in the Bronx, according to a legal settlement.
The proposed settlement – which will have to be signed off on by a federal judge – was published in a Manhattan federal court class action suit filed by the protesters who were “kettled” by NYPD cops at the protest in Mott Haven on June 4, 2020.
Protesters who were given a desk appearance ticket after being confined by officers will receive an additional $2,500, according to the terms of the settlement.
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If Judge Colleen McMahon OKs the proposed agreement, the city would have to shell out up to $6 million to the protesters.
The protest formed as the coronavirus pandemic raged in the city and unrest spread in cities across the US in response to the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
An 8 p.m. curfew had been imposed in the city days prior to the protest – and police confined the more than 300 protesters that day and waited until about 10 minutes after 8 p.m. to charge at and arrest the demonstrators.
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The protesters were cuffed with zip ties, battered with police batons and pepper sprayed, according to the suit.
“The New York City police blocked people from leaving before the curfew and then used the curfew as an excuse to beat, abuse, and arrest people who were protesting peacefully,” Ida Sawyer, acting crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch who co-authored a report about the breakup, said months after the protest.
“It was a planned operation with no justification that could cost New York taxpayers millions of dollars,” Sawyer added.
Then-Mayor Bill de Blasio largely defended the tactics by the cops after outrage over the kettling grew in the months following the incident – but said they NYPD was wrong for arresting legal observers.
“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,” the NYPD said in a statement.
“The NYPD remains committed to continually improving its practices in every way possible,” the department added.