They Won Millions In This Kettling Settlement, But Who Foots The Bill?

spraypaint on concrete that says defund nypd
Via Wikimedia Commons
Zain Murdock
March 27, 2023

This may be the largest class-action settlement related to mass arrest. In February 2023, New York City agreed to pay $21,500 each to over 300 protesters violently attacked by NYPD officers at a demonstration for George Floyd in 2020.

That day, police used a military technique called “kettling” to trap protesters in a closed space in order to assault them with pepper spray and batons. Then, they arrested nearly 300 people.

Police attacked protesters in a district in the South Bronx, where only 3% of the population is white, many being low-income Black folks. This is a big reason the Human Rights Watch made the case for a human rights violation.

And this isn’t just New York. Nationwide, cities like Minneapolis, Seattle, and Baton Rouge, have been knocking out these settlements. It all adds up. Over only the past 10 years, Chicago paid over half a billion on police misconduct cases.

Compensation is only the floor of what victims of police violence deserve. But this settlement money is taxpayer money. While this country pushes back against defunding the police, police continue to use their budgets to endanger us. Then, they hand us the bill for their misconduct.  

Police need to be stripped of their budgets and their power. It’s long overdue.

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