Cities pay out big for police misconduct
During 2020 George Floyd protests, police maimed protesters using less lethal weapons, attacked the press, and engaged in widespread abuse of crowd control tactics. Now, cities are paying the price.
Note: this article was originally published as part of our Protest Under Fire series. To read the full Fall 2023 edition, click here.
"These cops were clearly keyed up and ready to go to war. They were living out their fantasy of getting to put on tactical gear and act like they were in a situation of war, when they were actually going up against people with no armor and no weapons who weren't doing anything wrong."
[Attorney Andrew McNulty in Westword, 1/27/22]
Attribution: Hongao Xu, Wikimedia
Defending Rights & Dissent researchers are working to document the extent of police brutality and government abuses against protesters during the George Floyd uprising, as well as attempts to hide the truth from the public. A complete report on our findings will be published early next year, but we’re ready to share some of our initial findings.
We conducted open source analysis of over 90 court decisions and settlements paid out to injured protesters to gain a clearer understanding of the actions of police and protesters during the summer of 2020. We found that, while some protesters might have thrown bottles at police or vandalized property, often, it was the police who engaged in unlawful violence. The lawsuits showed that cops dressed in riot gear with bullet proof-vests, shields, and helmets, armed with lethal and less-lethal weapons fired wantonly on unarmed civilians, sometimes at close range, leading to serious injuries. People were arrested without justification, journalists were targeted, and rights were trampled.
A few key takeaways:
Over 2,500 protesters, journalists, bystanders, and legal observers joined the lawsuits, which ranged from individual to class actions representing hundreds of people.
Over $130 million was awarded to protesters who were maimed, brutalized, wrongfully arrested.
In most cases, cities settled lawsuits out of court, preventing public testimony and potentially higher awards to injured and falsely arrested protesters.
There are still hundreds of cases pending.
People who presented no threat were arrested and brutalized
Police used brutal force against protesters, often charging them with resisting arrest or other crimes. Police cited these charges to promote a narrative that protesters were dangerous and violent. But after reviewing video evidence and eyewitness accounts, those stories were repeatedly debunked.
In Minneapolis, Jaleel Stallings was en route to a vigil with some friends on the evening of May 30, 2020, when shots were fired at them. Stallings was hit in the chest and fired back. As soon as he realized the shooters were police, he threw his gun down, put up his hands, and lay motionless on the ground. Police swarmed him and beat and kicked him for 30 seconds. He was charged with 8 felonies, including attempting to murder two police officers and resisting arrest. A video of the incident showed the initial police attack on Stallings was unprovoked, and his response was reasonable. He was found not-guilty of any charges. The city agreed to pay Stallings $1.5 million to settle a civil lawsuit. (As reported by Minnesota Public Radio.)
Police in Milwaukee used excessive force and falsely arrested Cameron Murdoch on June 2, 2020. He’s been awarded $270,000 to settle his civil rights suit. Police kicked Hannah Silbaugh as she participated in a sit-in in Erie, PA on May 31, 2020. She was awarded $45,000. These are just a few of the many cases where police used unnecessary force against protesters.
Indiscriminate use of less lethal weapons was egregious, resulting in hundreds of injuries
Projectile weapons have soft names: bean bag rounds, rubber bullets, foam tipped projectiles. But they aren’t soft. They can maim, disfigure, and cause permanent debilitating injuries. Police justified their use as a means to control violent protesters. But the lawsuits tell a different story. In city after city where these weapons were used, it became evident that their use was indiscriminate, harming people who were no threat. The human toll of these weapons is beyond dispute. Here are a few examples we found:
A beanbag round fired by Cleveland police left John Sanders blind in his left eye. Awarded $1.5 million. - Cleveland [Cleveland.com]
Leslie Furcron was hit in the head with a beanbag round, and “ended up in the ICU, in a medically induced coma and lost vision in one eye.” Awarded $10 million. La Mesa, CA [CBS8]
“Marqus Martinez suffered a split upper lip, shattered front teeth, and broken facial bones” after being hit with a sting ball grenade. Awarded $1.9 million. - Santa Rosa, CA [The Press Democrat]
Justin Howell was shot in the face with a beanbag round and suffered traumatic brian injury. Awarded $8 million. - Austin [Fort Worth Star-Telegram]
Christen Warkoczewski, hit in the face by a bean bag, fracturing her jaw and leaving her disfigured. Awarded $850,000. - Austin [KXAN]
Gabriel Schlough, got his chin shot off by a rubber bullet. Awarded $575,000. - Denver [Denver Post ]
Hundreds of protesters were ‘kettled’ and falsely arrested at large demonstrations, costing cities millions
Kettling is a tactic wherein police surround and trap a group of people at a protest (who may be protesters, bystanders, journalists, or legal observers), and arrest them without justification. Often the arrests are accompanied by unnecessary force.
On June 4th, New York City Police (NYPD) officers “kettled” 320 protesters. They were “restrained with zip ties, battered with batons and hit with pepper spray” according to ABC News, and falsely arrested. Each person arrested will receive $21,500 as a result of a class action lawsuit totaling $7 million.
Police used tear gas and flash bang grenades to trap hundreds of protesters in downtown Charlotte, NC on June 2, 2020, setting up an extraordinarily dangerous situation. As protesters were trapped below, police started firing pepper balls at them from a parking garage.
The police intended chaos. According to the Charlotte Observer, a bodycam worn by Sgt. Scott Sherwood caught his enthusiasm for the plan,
“(Lt. Christopher) Rorie’s got a platoon on Tryon out of sight, (Maj. Robert) Dance’s platoon is staged now on College out of sight. We’re gonna push their ass straight up Fourth. As soon as we get up on Fourth, we got ‘em bottlenecked now. Rorie’s squad is gonna step out and hammer their ass. Dance’s squad is gonna step out and hammer their ass with gas ... We’re gonna f----n’ pop it up.”
A class action lawsuit is pending, but the NAACP, Charlotte Uprising, ACLU - NC and other organizations successfully sued the city to win reforms including a ban on the use of CS tear gas during protests, a ban on the use of chemical weapons to “kettle” or trap protesters, and other measures.
Lawsuits were used to win reforms
In the spirit of accountability and freedom, many protesters pushed hard in their lawsuits for reforms to policing in their cities and towns. Celia Palmer was thrown to the ground by 2 cops at a George Floyd protest in Colorado Springs, CO. She won a $175,000 settlement against the city that included a new requirement that CSPD give clear dispersal warnings before using force. In Graham, NC, the NAACP sued the county after the sheriff arrested people at a protest for cursing. As part of the settlement, the sheriff and his deputies will have to take implicit bias and racial equity training, and agreed to acknowledge that the public areas around the courthouse where the arrests were made, are “traditional public fora”. More robust reforms, such as restrictions on the use of less lethal weapons have been imposed
In some cases, cities adopted new restrictions and guidelines without court involvement. After the Sonoma County Commission on Human Rights accused Santa Rosa, CA police of abusing the human rights of protesters, the city hired two different outside firms to investigate further. Police have instituted restrictions on the use of less lethal weapons and tighter supervisory control.
Police in Florence, AL were made to revise their noise and parade ordinances, which they had used to repress the Black Lives Matter protesters. The sheer number of injuries to protesters as a result of indiscriminate use of “less lethal” weapons led to many lawsuits and significant monetary awards (see above). Importantly, several of the settlements included restrictions on the use of these weapons in cities large and small including Columbus, OH, Oakland, CA, Portland, OR, Reno, NV, and Washington, DC.
Settlements in Portland, OR, and Richmond, VA also included increased transparency. Richmond police will turn over body-camera videos, police radio audio, and other records related to policing the protests to the Virginia Library. The city will also donate the protest signs and other artifacts from the protests to the Black History Museum & Cultural Center of Virginia.
We remain on the case: tracking police settlements as more cases are settled across the country. As cities consider increasing police budgets, they’d do well to remember that misconduct against protesters comes at a cost.