NYPD settles with ACLU over 2020 attacks on BLM protesters and must limit intimidation tactics, including use of helicopters, at peaceful protests

The New York City Police Department has reached a sweeping settlement with the ACLU after targeting protesters during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.

Police will be banned from ketting — the practice of confining protesters to small areas — and from using “intimidating” helicopters — while New York taxpayers foot the $1.45 million bill for a “oversight committee.”

During the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in the city, the NYPD “pepper sprayed protesters, hit them with batons, hit pedestrians with bicycles, and locked protesters indoors.”

Now a new four-tier response system is being introduced to determine how the NYPD responds to protests – and creating a new role within the department to oversee compliance in this area.

Chain attacks and the use of helicopters for intimidation have been banned – and there is now a limit on the use of force for pepper spray, baton and bicycle beatings.

Following the settlement, which was the result of a lawsuit, the NYPD will only disperse the protests as a last resort and must issue three orders to disperse before arrests are made.

NYPD officers face protesters after curfew during a protest over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody on June 2, 2020

On July 1, 2020, protesters and members of the New York Police Department clash in City Hall Park

NYPD officers arrested more than 1,300 people during the protests between May 28 and June 4. More protests erupted later in the summer.

The new measures will minimize the number of police officers at future protests and change the way they react.

The NYPD will also be forced to improve its treatment of the press and increase reporters’ access to tape and cover gatherings. These measures include increased training and a ban on posting crime scene tapes just to keep the media at bay.

A “monitoring committee” will also be set up to ensure that the new practices are implemented and followed. This group includes the Attorney General’s Office, the ACLU, the NYPD Department of Investigation, and others.

Following the settlement, the ACLU’s NYC division said, “Our historic settlement means the NYPD can no longer indiscriminately flood protests with police officers — new protocols keep officers away from most protests and require a proportionate response.”

“The NYPD will also not easily involve its notoriously brutal Strategic Response Group (SRG).”

They first filed the lawsuit in October 2020, saying police “ran over, beat, pepper-sprayed and threw peaceful protesters to the ground.”

The group claimed in an incident in the Bronx that officers “deliberately held the protesters captive to prevent them from escaping, then unleashed waves of poisonous gas on them before proceeding to attack members of the helpless crowd.”

This tactic is known as ketting.

New York Attorney General Letitia James said today, “The right to peacefully assemble and protest is inviolable and fundamental to our democracy.”

“Too often, peaceful protesters have been met with violence that has harmed innocent New Yorkers who were simply trying to exercise their rights.”

“Today’s agreement will significantly change the way the NYPD handles and responds to public demonstrations in New York City.”

“As Attorney General, it is my duty to protect the rights of New Yorkers, and this agreement will ensure that peaceful protesters can make their voices heard without fear, intimidation or harm.”

Attorney General Letitia James said: “The right to peacefully assemble and protest is inviolable and fundamental to our democracy.”

Corey Stoughton, senior counsel for the Criminal Defense Practice’s Special Litigation Unit at the Legal Aid Society, said: “Today’s settlement represents a novel approach to protest policing that, if diligently implemented by the NYPD, will ensure that… there will never be protesters again.” met the kind of indiscriminate violence and reprisals New York saw in the summer of 2020.

“We look forward to implementing these reforms and will hold both the city and the NYPD accountable should the department and individual officials fail to comply with these new and necessary practices.”

Molly Biklen, associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said, “This landmark settlement commits the NYPD, the nation’s largest and most influential police force, to their oath to protect New Yorkers’ right to protest.”

“The NYPD’s violent response to protesters during the 2020 pro-Black Lives demonstrations has exposed to the world what too many New Yorkers already knew: that the NYPD is unable or unwilling to police itself .”

“Today’s agreement ensures that the NYPD can no longer use the notorious Strategic Response Group to indiscriminately protest and escalate violence on a whim.”

On July 1, 2020, protesters and members of the New York Police Department clash in City Hall Park

Demonstrators gather before a march in the Brooklyn borough of New York, June 6, 2020

Clash between protesters and members of the New York Police Department in City Hall Park, July 1, 2020 in New York,

Protesters march down 5th Avenue in solidarity for police reform on June 10, 2020 in New York City

Police officers stand guard during the Black Lives Matter protest as protesters cordoned off the streets at City Hall and Police Plaza on July 1, 2020

In July, New York City agreed to pay $13 million to more than 1,000 citizens arrested during the summer of 2020 George Floyd demonstrations.

The civil rights lawsuit was filed on behalf of some 1,380 demonstrators protesting racial injustice who were arrested or beaten by police during protests across the city.

If approved by a judge, the settlement would be among the most expensive payouts ever awarded in a mass arrest trial, experts said.

The lawsuit focused on 18 of the many protests that broke out in New York City in the week after the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. New Yorkers were among millions of Americans who took to the streets across the country to protest police brutality and systemic racism.

With certain exceptions, individuals arrested by NYPD officers or subjected to violence at these events are each entitled to $9,950 in damages, according to plaintiffs’ attorneys.

The agreement, one of several as part of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, allows the city to avoid a trial that could be both expensive and politically sensitive.