New York City would pay hundreds who were arrested during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests thousands of dollars each as part of a proposed settlement in a class-action lawsuit that accuses the city’s police department of “violations of their rights under the First, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.”
According to a court filing, the city would pay each of the protesters in the lawsuit $21,500, if the settlement is approved by a judge. An additional $2,500 would be given to those who were issued “Desk Appearance Tickets,” which require an individual to appear in court at a particular date and time to respond to accusations of a crime.
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If approved, the settlement is estimated to cost the city between $4 million and $6 million, considering that only about 90 of the 300 people in attendance at the June 4, 2020, protest have already settled with the city out of court.
The protests took place just days following the death of George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis, which sparked similar protests in cities across the country.
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The proposed settlement from the city specifically states that it’s offering the compensation to “individuals who were detained, arrested, and/or subjected to force by police officers on June 4, 2020, on East 136th Street between Brook Avenue and Brown Place in the Bronx during the ‘George Floyd protest’ in Mott Haven.”
The settlement could be one of the largest of its kind. In 2010, Washington, D.C., agreed to pay protesters who were arrested near the World Bank $18,000 each for a grand total of $13.7 million.