The New York City government has agreed to pay more than 300 Black Lives Matter demonstrators $21,500 each to settle a lawsuit over the crowd control tactics police used in response to demonstrations in the summer of 2020.
The plaintiffs also alleged police used a tactic known as “kettling,” in which they surrounded demonstrators to prevent them from escaping arrest. The police were also alleged to have excessively tightened plastic handcuffs on arrested protesters, “which caused pain, bruising and, in some cases, led to long-term injury.”
During the course of their lawsuit, which became a class action case, the plaintiffs identified 320 people who fit their proposed class of demonstrators who were “detained and/or subjected to force by police while protesting police brutality on June 4, 2020 in the Mott Haven neighborhood of the Bronx.”
Mott Haven Clash
The June 4, 2020, protest in question took place just days after George Floyd, a black man, died in Minneapolis Police custody. Protests and riots spread throughout the county following Floyd’s death, including in New York City.The plaintiffs said they were among those “engaging in peaceful protesting” following Floyd’s death.
The lawsuit alleged police began kettling the protesters before the curfew, preventing some of the protesters from being able to leave before the 8 p.m. curfew went into effect. The lawsuit also alleged that plaintiff Charlie Monlouis-Anderle “never heard the police tell the protesters to leave or disperse” and said officers charged at some of the protesters at around 8:15 p.m. on June 4, 2020. Plaintiff Jarrett Payne claimed that he had heard because the protest was peaceful, it was allowed to continue past the 8 p.m. curfew.
While the lawsuit did not claim all those arrested in Mott Haven on June 4, 2020, intended to obey the curfew, the complaint did claim that enforcement of the city-wide curfew was “inconsistent” and that “police used the curfew as a pretext for perpetrating mass violence on and arresting protesters, with no apparent justification for the differential treatment.”
Clash Aftermath
Following the June 4 Mott Haven arrests, NYPD officials said some of the marchers were “screaming and yelling at officers, throwing plastic bottles with unknown liquids, and acting in a disorderly manner,” the New York Daily News reported. NYPD officials also claimed they recovered hammers, wrenches, gas masks, and “additional items that could be used to cause injuries” from among the protesters they kettled and arrested in the Mott Haven neighborhood.Several protesters were left bloodied by the clash with police, according to the lawsuit. Plaintiff Jarrett Payne said that after he and other demonstrators were handcuffed, a police officer standing nearby said to him, unprovoked, “you got what was coming to you.”
“The police have not provided any evidence that they found these items on protesters in Mott Haven or that these items were intended to be used for violent acts, saying only that they were “seized from individuals arrested in the Bronx last night,” the HRW report said.