By Cliff Montgomery – June 23rd, 2014
New York City officials have quietly agreed to pay nearly $600,000 to a band of Occupy Wall Street protesters, as compensation for what the demonstrators say were wrongful arrests in January 2012. Lawyers for the Occupy protesters call the settlement the largest of its kind for members of the well-known movement.
The payment is city officials’ response to a federal lawsuit brought by 14 Occupy demonstrators, who charged that their arrests on January 1st, 2012 were clear violations of their constitutional rights to engage in free speech and free assembly.
Each one of the protesters who took part in the lawsuit will receive between $5,000 to $20,000 for compensatory damages, according to lawyers for the demonstrators. In all, the city will pay the protesters a total of $583,000 for compensation and legal fees.
The Occupiers were arrested and charged with obstructing pedestrian traffic during a Manhattan demonstration. The protesters said that police first surrounded them, then ordered them to disperse – if true, the action would have been a case of simple entrapment and would have all but assured the arrest of the demonstrators.
Garrett O’Connor, a plaintiff in the federal lawsuit, declared in one statement that police captain William Taylor “personally prevented me from obeying his order, by stepping in my way and putting his hand on my chest when I tried to leave.”
“A few seconds later, I was on the ground with my face on the pavement and several police officers on top of me,” continued O’Connor.
Perhaps it was the power of such a bold claim from the protesters, or perhaps it was the fact that demonstrators said they had access to video footage which proved this matter to be a case of police aggression and entrapment. Whatever the case, New York officials apparently decided it was better to compensate the Occupiers than to test the legality of their actions in a federal court.
It is also interesting to note that New York City prosecutors have decided not to prosecute most of the 2,600 or so Occupy protesters arrested by police. The arrests do seem strange, since the demonstrators’ only apparent sin has been to openly and peacefully question the hubris of American capitalism.
Andrew Lucas, who serves as a New York City assistant corporation counsel, appeared to tacitly admit to reporters that arresting the 14 demonstrators was a flat-out mistake.
Those arrests “involved a fast-evolving, complicated policing situation occurring over many hours where only a small fraction of protesters was arrested,” stated Lucas, which is about as close to a mea culpa from city officials as the Occupy movement might ever hope to receive.
Of course, attorneys speaking for the protesters had a very different impression of the matter.
“The police, led by supervising officers, stopped peaceful protesters on the sidewalk, surrounded them with a blue wall of police, told them to disperse, and then arrested them before they possibly could,” declared attorney Wylie Stecklow in a statement.
David Thompson, another lawyer who worked for the 14 Occupiers, told reporters that “the mass arrest of non-violent protesters has no place in any democracy.”
“The NYPD pursued a policy of arresting thousands of people who had done nothing wrong,” continued Thompson.
“I hope that the resolution of this lawsuit will show that the NYPD policy must change. It is my hope that this case and others like it will free our streets and parks for peaceful protest,” the attorney added.
