CV NEWS FEED // Following a class-action lawsuit, New York City will pay a combined $13.7 million to people who protested the 2020 death of George Floyd.
The city decided to settle in order to avoid a trial. The plaintiffs claimed that New York Police infringed upon their rights.
Per the terms of the settlement, at least a thousand people are set to each receive up to just shy of ten thousand dollars in “compensation” from the city.
“Some of the protesters who are eligible for payouts were arrested, while others were not arrested, but had their First Amendment rights infringed by police, their lawsuit claimed,” The The Daily Wire reported Thursday:
Protesters who were arrested on charges of violence including trespassing, property destruction, assaulting an officer, or arson or weapons possession will not be eligible for a payout, and those who blocked police from arresting other people may also not be eligible.
The settlement must still be approved by a judge. It would reportedly be one of the most expensive payouts ever over mass arrests.
New York City attorney Georgia Pestana denied the plaintiffs’ charges. “There is no history — or present or future — of unconstitutional policing,” she said. “There is no frequent deprivation of constitutional rights.”
Nearly 10,000 people were arrested in the series of protests and riots that occurred in the immediate aftermath of Floyd’s death on May 25, 2020. The nationwide demonstrations caused almost two billion dollars in property damage. Rioters destroyed many black-owned businesses. After two weeks of protests, 19 people had been killed.
The civil unrest was largely promoted by Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (colloquially known as Black Lives Matter or BLM), a far-left group that was later exposed and discredited for misappropriating funds.
FOX News reported in February that BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors “has come under fire for allegedly misusing millions of dollars in donations to spend on multi-million dollar properties.”
