NYPD settles with ACLU for attacking BLM protesters in 2020 and must limit intimidation tactics, including using helicopters, at peaceful protests
The New York Police Department has reached a comprehensive settlement with the ACLU after attacking protesters during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.
Police will be banned from chaining – the practice of confining protesters in small areas – and from using “intimidating” helicopters – while New York City taxpayers foot the $1.45 million bill for an “oversight committee” .
During the city’s 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, the NYPD “pepper sprayed protesters, beat them with batons, beat pedestrians with bicycles, and locked protesters in closed areas.”
Now, a new four-tier response system will be introduced to determine how the NYPD responds to protests — and create a new role within the department to oversee compliance in this area.
Kettles and the use of helicopters to intimidate are banned – and there is now a limit on the use of force involving pepper spray, bat and bicycle attacks.
Following the settlement that resulted from a lawsuit, the NYPD will only break up protests as a last resort and must order them to disperse three times before any arrests are made.
NYPD officers confront protesters after curfew during a protest against the death in police custody of George Floyd in Minneapolis, June 2, 2020
Protesters clash with members of the New York Police Department at City Hall Park on July 1, 2020
NYCLU said after the settlement: “Our historic settlement means the NYPD can no longer arbitrarily flood protests with police — new protocols keep police out of most protests and require a proportionate response.
“The NYPD won’t easily involve its notoriously brutal Strategic Response Group (SRG) either.”
They first filed the lawsuit in October 2020, saying police “run over, beat, pepper sprayed and threw peaceful protesters to the ground.”
The group alleged that in one incident in the Bronx, officers “deliberately trapped protesters so they couldn’t escape and then unleashed waves of poisonous gas on them before moving in to attack members of the helpless mob.”
Attorney General Letitia James said today: “The right to peacefully assemble and protest is sacred and fundamental to our democracy.
“Too often, peaceful protesters have faced violence that harms innocent New Yorkers who are simply trying to exercise their rights.
“Today’s agreement will create a meaningful change in how the NYPD handles and responds to public demonstrations in New York City.
“As Attorney General, it is my duty to protect the rights of New Yorkers and this agreement will ensure that peaceful protesters can speak without fear, harassment or harm.”
Attorney General Letitia James said: ‘The right to peacefully assemble and protest is sacred and fundamental to our democracy’
Corey Stoughton, attorney for the Special Litigation Unit of The Legal Aid Society’s Criminal Defense Practice, said: “Today’s settlement represents a new approach to protest surveillance that, if faithfully executed by the NYPD, will ensure that protesters never again faced the kind of indiscriminate violence and retaliation that New York saw in the summer of 2020.
“We look forward to seeing these reforms unfold and will hold both the city and the NYPD accountable if the Department and individual officials fail to comply with these new and necessary practices.”
Molly Biklen, deputy legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said: “This historic settlement holds the NYPD, the nation’s largest and most influential police force, to its oath to protect the right of New Yorkers to protest.
The NYPD’s violent response to protesters during the 2020 black lives demonstrations made it clear to the world what too many New Yorkers already knew: that the NYPD is unable or unwilling to control itself.
“Today’s settlement ensures that the NYPD can no longer indiscriminately deploy the infamous Strategic Response Group at protests and allow violence to escalate on a whim.”
Protesters clash with members of the New York Police Department at City Hall Park on July 1, 2020
Protesters gather for a march on June 6, 2020 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City
Protesters clash with members of the New York Police Department at City Hall Park July 1, 2020 in New York,
Protesters march down 5th Avenue in solidarity for police reform in New York City on June 10, 2020
Police officers stand guard during Black Lives Matter protest as protesters block the streets at City Hall and Police Plaza, July 1, 2020
In July, New York City agreed to pay out $13 million to more than a thousand citizens arrested during the George Floyd demonstrations in the summer of 2020.
The civil rights lawsuit was brought on behalf of about 1,380 protesters against racial injustice who were arrested or beaten by police during protests that swept the city.
If approved by a judge, the settlement would be one of the most expensive payouts ever awarded in a mass arrest lawsuit, experts say.
The lawsuit focused on eighteen of the many protests that erupted in New York City in the week following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. New Yorkers were among the millions of Americans who took to the streets nationwide to protest police brutality and systemic racism.
With certain exceptions, people arrested or subjected to coercion by NYPD officers during these events will each be eligible for $9,950 in damages, according to plaintiffs’ attorneys.
The agreement, one of many to emerge from the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, allows the city to avoid a process that could be both costly and politically charged.