NYC Agrees To Multimillion-Dollar Settlement With George Floyd Protesters

Op-ed Contributor

Lorenzo Prieto on March 1, 2023

NEW YORK, NY – New York City has agreed to pay more than $20,000 each to hundreds of protesters who participated in the 2020 George Floyd protests and were “arrested, detained, and/or subjected to force by police officers,” according to NBC News.

The settlement filed late Tuesday states that the city will compensate $21,500 to the 300 protesters detained in the aftermath of the Mott Haven neighborhood protest in the Bronx on June 4, 2020, according to NBC News. If approved, the total cost of the settlement would be at least $7 million, making it the highest per-person settlement award in a mass arrest class action lawsuit.

The lawsuit stated the NYPD “arrested and charged the protestors without probable cause and subjected them to excessive force, as part of a planned police action involving some of the most senior members of the NYPD,” as reported by NBC News. Police officers contained the protesters through “kettling,” a practice in which officers contain protesters in small confinements without letting them leave.


Former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio defended this strategy as needed to contain the tumult of the protests that led protesters to defy curfews and ransack part of Manhattan, according to The New York Times. “There comes a point where enough is enough,” said de Blasio.

The protest was a response to the death of George Floyd, which happened in Minneapolis in May 2020.

When booed at the memorial of George Floyd, de Blasio promised that he would review reports of police officers’ bad conduct, according to the NYT.

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