Adama Sow, one of the plaintiffs named in the lawsuit, said his group of protesters was caught by police without warning. Sow and the other arrestees were restrained until their hands turned purple, then held in a sweltering correctional bus for several hours.
“It was so disorganized, but so intentional,” Sow said. “It seemed like they were determined to traumatize everyone.”
The city invoked qualified immunity, which protect the cops from lawsuits stemming from lawful work performed in the line of duty, and defended the decision to arrest doctors and legal observers as part of the department’s rights.
While lawyers for the plaintiffs cited past crackdowns on large rallies, including during the 2004 Republican National Convention, as evidence of long-standing «systemic violations» by the NYPD, the city’s lawyers said they did not there was a systematic effort to deprive people of their right to protest. .
“There is no history, present or future, of unconstitutional policing,” Georgia Pestana, a city attorney, wrote in a memo. «There is no frequent deprivation of constitutional rights.»
The suit named former Mayor Bill de Blasio and retired NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea, as well as other police leaders as defendants. Under the settlement agreement, neither the city nor the NYPD are required to admit any wrongdoing.
Protesters who were arrested on certain charges, including trespassing, destruction of property, assaulting an officer, arson or possession of weapons, will be excluded from the agreement. Those who were seen on video preventing police from making arrests may also not be eligible.
Unlike other lawsuits related to the 2020 protests, the class action lawsuit was not intended to force the NYPD to change its practices. There are several other lawsuits aimed at injunctive relief that are ongoing, including one filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James calling for a federal monitor to oversee the NYPD’s surveillance of protests.
Another class action settlement announced earlier this year would award $21,500 to those arrested by police during a protest in the Bronx, a payment that could total around $10 million, including legal fees.
Separately, more than 600 people have filed individual lawsuits against New York City related to police action during the 2020 protests, according to City Comptroller Brad Lander. About half of those have resulted in settlements and resolutions, costing the city nearly $12 million to date.
Wylie Stecklow, a lawyer for the protesters in the class action lawsuit, said the rising cost to taxpayers should serve as a «red flag» to city leaders about the inability of the NYPD to correct their «problem decades of constitutionally policing protests.
«While the arc of the moral universe is really long, sometimes it needs reform to lean toward justice,» he said.