To a massive arrest –including attacks by the police–, a massive compensation.
The city of New York reached an agreement to pay $21,500 to each of the hundreds of protesters (an estimated 300) who were violently cornered by uniformed officers at a protest in the Bronx on June 4, 2020. That was a period of massive mobilizations in the United States after the death in Minneapolis of the black citizen George Floyd under the murderous pressure of the knee of the white police officer Derek Chauvin, later sentenced to almost a quarter of a century in prison.
The Big Apple has emerged as one of the main epicenters in the fight against police brutality.
If the judge signs the agreement, as everything indicates, the amount agreed per person will make this the highest class action lawsuit for a mass arrest granted in New York history. The total will rise to more than six million dollars, depending on those who show that they were arrested.
That June 4, in the Mott Haven neighborhood, the police closed the protesters, who had gathered peacefully, in a street. They prevented them from fleeing with the tactic called kettling, cornering, while they applied violence to tie the attendees with plastic handcuffs, according to the lawsuit.
In addition to not putting on the mask, when the city urged them to do so at the height of the covid, the agents attacked with their batons and with pepper spray, without the fences having the capacity to defend themselves or escape from the trap.
