A federal judge is set to finalize a $4.8 million payout on Tuesday of $21,500 each to hundreds of protestors who claimed in a lawsuit that they were trapped by police and attacked with batons and pepper spray during a 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in the Bronx.
The payout is one of several lawsuits that triggered a proposed settlement brought by Attorney General Letitia James, the Legal Aid Society, the New York Civil Liberties Union and protesters who say police brutalized them in the Mott Haven protest that sparked widespread outrage.
“These are tough cases and they’re fraught,” U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon said in court on Tuesday morning. “This is an excellent settlement. I’m very pleased.”
Several plaintiffs gathered outside the Southern District federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan after McMahon hit her gavel — pleased with the outcome of the case but plagued by their memories of the protest.
Alex Gutierrez, a 32-year-old Bronx native, said he was detained for about 21 hours after peacefully protesting that day. He was one of roughly 250 people arrested by police.
“There was an individual in my cell who was bleeding from the head … His whole face just gushed and he was in his cell for hours before they released him,” Gutierrez said.
“Anytime you asked for water [the officers] would go and grab a water bottle out of your bag and drink it in front of you.”
Gutierrez and roughly 200 other plaintiffs will receive what is believed to be the largest-ever per-person payout for a mass arrest, Alison Frick, an attorney for the named plaintiffs, told Gothamist. The settlement does not include an admission of wrongdoing by the NYPD.
In response to the related proposed settlement from the attorney general, NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban said in a press release last month that the 2020 protests posed “unique challenges” for police. Patrick Hendry, president of the Police Benevolent Union, the city’s largest police union, has said that the proposed settlement could “encourage future violence” against officers, 400 of whom he said were injured during the 2020 protests.
Photojournalist Josh Pacheco, another co-plaintiff in the case, said police officers pulled out their phones to pose for a photo with them and other arrested protesters.
“I find that even more disgusting than the bloodshed and the violence,” Pacheco said. “We were just trophies to them”
This story has been updated with new information.
