300 Black Lives Matters Protesters 'Kettled' by NYPD Will Be Paid $21.5K each [View all]
Protesters 'Kettled' by NYPD Will Be Paid $21.5K
Black Lives Matter demonstrators were penned in, violently arrested on Bronx street
Hundreds of peaceful protesters who were violently arrested during a Black Lives Matter protest in New York City could be getting some of the biggest-ever payouts in a class-action mass arrest case. The city has agreed to pay $21,500 to each of around 300 protesters who were penned in on a Bronx street in June 2020 in a practice known as "kettling," the New York Times reports.
In a lawsuit filed against the city and former NYPD chief Terry Monahan, among others, protesters said multiple people were "left injured and bleeding" after police hit the trapped protesters with batons and used pepper spray on them in an unprovoked attack. "Some protesters fainted, or lost consciousness and went into convulsions," the lawsuit states.
Human Rights Watch said the mass arrest violated international human rights law. The protesters were "brought to jails all over the city and held for hours overnight and into the next day with no food and little or no water. Many are injured and get no medical help," the group said in a September 2020 report.
The group said it was one of the "most aggressive police responses" to the protests that erupted nationwide after George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis. Joshua S. Moskovitz, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, tells BuzzFeed that the "unprecedented settlement recognizes that the NYPDs actions ... were grievously wrong."
https://www.newser.com/story/332198/protesters-kettled-by-nypd-will-be-paid-215k.html