During the protests in the Mott Haven neighborhood of the city's Bronx borough after the police murder of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man who died on May 25, 2020, when a Minneapolis police officer pinned his neck the ground with a knee for about nine minutes, New York City police were accused of beating and illegally detaining over 300 people.
In the largest class-action settlement in the case of a mass arrest, New York City has agreed to pay a multimillion-dollar settlement to protesters who were aggressively “boxed in” or “kettled” by NYPD officers during the Black Lives Matter demonstrations that swept the country following the police murder of George Floyd in 2020.
If approved by a federal judge, over 300 people who were kettled, then beaten, detained or arrested by New York police at the June 4, 2020, Bronx protest will each receive $21,500. A third of the demonstrators also previously settled with the city in separate claims.
"In the course of this litigation, we learned that this operation was preplanned and coordinated at the highest levels of the NYPD," Ali Frick, one of the lawyers who brought the case, said in an interview.
A Human Rights Watch investigation said the NYPD’s conduct that day amounted to “serious violations of international human rights law.”
Last month, the city's civilian police review board recommended that 146 officers face disciplinary action for excessive use of force and other misconduct during the 2020 protests. The city paid out $121 million in 2022 in police misconduct settlements, according to an analysis by the Legal Aid Society released last month.
About the writer: Matthew Woodruff is an Independent Journalist and Author who believes in Freely Accessible, Honest and Open Reporting. Visit at MattWoodruffAuthor.com.
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