Occupy Wall St. Protesters Settle With City Over Lawsuit
Sometimes, hard, physical evidence that exposes a breach of police conduct actually pays off. It certainly has for six protestors involved in some early Occupy Wall Street rallies in 2011, as they were granted a settlement worth $332,500 by New York City over the last few weeks, CBS News reports.
The settlement comes after video presented in court showed Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna pepper spraying a group of female protesters who were peacefully gathered behind some netting. Ron Kuby, a lawyer for Kaylee Dedrick, one of the victims blasted with pepper-spray in the video, told CBS that Bologna acted “without the slightest provocation.”
Even though his police union doesn’t necessarily agree that Bolgona acted like an over-zealous meathead wielding a lethal canister of eye-searing contaminants (he was only docked ten days vacation time for his actions), New York City’s Law Department agreed to pay each victim a sum between $52,500 to $60,000.
“We think it’s an amount that reflects that the city is aware that its actions were entirely improper,” Mark Taylor, one of the victim’s lawyers, told CBS.
These particular protestors were pretty lucky, as the city hasn’t exactly been as generous when it comes to other claims of police brutality during various Occupy protests.
If you’re looking for a reason to get angry, here’s the video below.
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