New York City has reached another record-setting settlement with people arrested in summer 2020 racial justice protests. The city has agreed to pay $13 million collectively to people arrested during 18 protests in Brooklyn and Manhattan—an agreement that amounts to nearly $10,000 per person arrested.
The settlement doesn't address the "harmful realities we were protesting in 2020," said plaintiff Savitri Durkee. "What it does do is affirm our constitutional right to protest that injustice, and protest we must. I'm going to spend the next few months making sure this settlement reaches every single activist in the class and I'm going right back in the street - and the First Amendment is my permit."
