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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIllegally Arrested RNC Protesters FINALLY Getting Paid
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/01/arrested-rnc-protesters-finally-get-paid.htmlYesterday at 4:19 PM
Illegally Arrested RNC Protesters Finally Getting Paid
By Adam Martin
The lawsuits against the city over the arrest of thousands of people protesting the Republican National Convention in 2004 seem like they've been dragging on for decades. In reality, it's only been about one decade. But on Wednesday the city settled the bulk of those cases, with more than 1,800 plaintiffs, for a whopping $18 million. Both NYCLU executive director Donna Lieberman and Martin Stolar, a National Lawyer's Guild attorney who represented some of the plaintiffs, said it was the biggest settlement they'd ever heard of in a mass-arrest case. Lieberman called it "a lesson, certainly," to the city of New York and to people all over the world, that squelching protests does not pay. "It appears to be the largest settlement of a mass-arrest case in history. Or at least in U.S. history," Stolar said.
The settlement closes all but six cases against the city, Leiberman said. It includes some 600 individual plaintiffs as well as 1,200 members of a class action, the New York Law Department said in a joint statement with the plaintiffs.
"Ill simply say Im glad the case is settled," Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Wednesday. "Were going to take a very different view going forward on how we respect peoples rights to express themselves."
All told, the settlement earmarks $7 million for lawyers' fees, the joint statement said, though Stolar said lawyers were getting closer to $5 million. The average payout for plaintiffs came to $6,400 each, according to the AP, which cited a statement from the New York Law Department. Individual plaintiffs got between $15,000 and $40,000 each, depending on how long they spent in custody among other factors, Stolar said. Members of the class action got about $5,000 each.
"I dont think its that much money. For me, I knew once it was all divvied up it would be a small amount for all of us, but I wanted to stick it out because I didnt want that to happen to anyone again," said Nazie Fatima Shekarchi, a chef from Los Angeles who said she was visiting friends during the protest and not participating in it when police rounded up a crowd on the block where she was walking.
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Last edited Thu Jan 16, 2014, 02:02 PM - Edit history (1)
ProdigalJunkMail
(12,017 posts)much...
sP
G_j
(40,372 posts)mostly works pro bono, but I don't specifically know about this case.
ProdigalJunkMail
(12,017 posts)if so, good on them!
sP
kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)markpkessinger
(8,409 posts). . . in a city like NYC (where I have lived for over 30 years), with an annual budget of $70 billion, and $18 million settlement will be considered by the powers that be as being little more than a cost of doing business. It does nothing to prevent police from doing exactly the same thing again in the future.
G_j
(40,372 posts)an ACLU lawyer once told me that funds are put aside just for lawsuits.
In other words, they have already planned on violating people's rights.
dsc
(52,169 posts)I have such a fund set aside incase I get in an auto accident (it's called auto insurance).
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)These arrests weren't accidental.
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)reddread
(6,896 posts)and who paid for them?
what a showy ripoff, and wild exercise in civil rights abuses,
orchestrated by the Bush RNC.
they should be footing the tab.