The 2020 Black Lives Matter protests and riots resulted in as much as $2 billion in property damage, but some of the hardest-hit cities are now paying the demonstrators.
New York City agreed to a $13.7 million settlement of a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of about 1,300 protesters arrested or harmed by police in May and June 2020. That amounts to about $9,950 per demonstrator.
The settlement, disclosed in a federal court filing Wednesday, is one of the largest by a liberal city to resolve protesters’ claims of law enforcement abuse. The figure is approaching an estimated $100 million.
In March, New York City agreed to pay $6 million, or $21,500 each, to about 300 people corralled during the Mott Haven protest on June 4, 2020. Police officers used a tactic known as kettling.
A federal judge must approve the settlement, which does not include an admission of wrongdoing by the city or the police department.
“Although the city does not admit liability in this settlement, the size of this monetary settlement, coupled with the earlier settlement about Mott Haven, strongly suggests otherwise,” lead plaintiff Adama Sow said in a statement to Gothamist. “It is also a testament to the importance of collective action to redress violations of important constitutional rights.”
The agreement excludes protesters arrested on charges such as trespassing, property destruction and assaulting an officer, but critics said the deal essentially amounts to paying people to protest.
“In other words, people are being retroactively paid to riot,” said the conservative Twitchy Team.
Other comments on social media included “Criminals getting paid. How left wing,” “Blue state and local governments compensate their left wing rioters” and “Be right back. Gonna go riot, be arrested, get a paycheck.”
“It’s part of a larger scheme in which leftist agitators use sympathetic Democratic city bureaucracies to fund their activities,” conservative pundit Dinesh D’Souza tweeted after the March settlement.
Try THAT in a small town… https://t.co/gU7ZgCkvUI
— jimtreacher.substack.com (@jtLOL) July 20, 2023
Some of the protests triggered by the May 2020 death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police began peacefully but devolved into riotings, lootings and burnings of businesses and public buildings. The Minneapolis Police Department’s 3rd Precinct building was torched during the unrest.
At least a dozen other major U.S. cities have agreed to pay protesters to resolve lawsuits. In March, Philadelphia announced a $9.25 million settlement over allegations of “physical and emotional injuries” at the hands of police.
“After several years of negotiation, we are confident that this settlement will provide an opportunity for the plaintiffs to heal and move forward from the incidents on May 31, 2020 and June 1, 2020,” Philadelphia City Solicitor Diana Cortes said in a March 20 statement.
Denver has agreed to pay $3.8 million to settle protesters’ claims. That doesn’t include a $14 million jury verdict last year for excessive police force against a dozen demonstrators.
In addition to the class-action lawsuits, New York City has been hit with more than 600 individual complaints about police actions during the 2020 protests. About half of those complaints have been settled for about $12 million, city Comptroller Brad Lander told The Associated Press.
Lawyer Wylie Stecklow, who represented the protesters with the left-wing National Lawyers Guild, said the department has a “decades-old problem with constitutionally compliant protest policing.”
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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