New York City has agreed to pay millions of dollars to hundreds of protesters who were arrested, detained and subjected to excessive force during a protest over the murder of George Floyd in 2020.
According to the lawsuit against the New York police department, the city and several high-ranking officials, an estimated 320 protesters were subjected to “kettling”, a controversial police tactic in which officers encircle protesters.
Once the protesters were “kettled”, the lawsuits states, police zip-tied them, hit several with batons and used pepper spray, ABC News reported.
“The NYPD in an operation planned by the highest levels of police officials, kettled protesters on East 136th Street between Brook Avenue and Brown Place and unleashed a brutal assault on more than 300 people, who were injured, arrested, and detained for hours,” attorneys for protesters said.
Floyd, a Black man, was killed on 25 May 2020 after a Minneapolis officer kneeled on his neck for more than nine minutes. The killing sparked international protests for racial justice.
The New York protesters were participating in a rally on 4 June in the Mott Haven neighborhood of the Bronx.
The settlement to the protesters’ suit will see the city pay more than $6m to 320 people, each individual receiving $21,000. An additional $2,500 will be paid to protesters who were served a desk appearance ticket, NBC reported.
Henry Wood, a plaintiff, gave a statement on the impact of police use of force.
“The violence unleashed upon us that night was intentional, unwarranted, and will be with me for the rest of my life,” he said. “What the NYPD did, aided by the political powers of New York City, was an extreme abuse of power.”
Attorneys for the protesters said the payment could be the “highest per-person settlement in a mass arrest class action lawsuit in New York City history”, CNN reported.
It is not the first time New York City police have been criticized for their treatment of protesters for racial justice.
Legal experts have stated that protesters faced “abysmal” conditions after being detained, some being incarcerated for up to 48 hours without access to food, masks or water.
Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, lawyers have said most officers did not wear masks when interacting with protesters and “packed” those arrested into cells with no regard for social distancing.
“We have heard from our clients who have been arrested that the conditions in the holding cells that they are held in, in many cases for 10 to 20 hours, are abysmal,” Corey Stoughton, head of special litigation at the Legal Aid Society, told the Guardian in June 2020.
“Especially following some of the larger demonstrations and mass arrests … there are extremely crowded conditions … the cells are dirty and unsanitary and unsafe.”
