Philadelphia agreed to pay $9.5 million to 343 plaintiffs who claimed police injured them during the George Floyd riots in 2020.
The people blocked Interstate 676 on June 1, 2020.
Law firm Mincey Fitzpatrick Ross, LLC announced the agreement. The firm, representing 237 people, negotiated the settlement “with three other lawsuits filed by attorneys.”
The Ross suit “named Mayor Jim Kenney, Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw, former Philadelphia police officer Richard Nicoletti, and the City of Philadelphia.”
The amount for each person will depend on their case.
The plaintiffs said the settlement is not the end because “they want the city to do more to ensure the end of police brutality against residents.” The police department already agreed not to stop participating in a government program that supplies them with military equipment.
Bread & Roses Community Fund will receive between $500,000 and $600,000 to provide free mental health counseling for the residents in the area, not just the plaintiffs.
However, dashcam footage shows rioters show violence towards officers, which the city used to justify its actions:
Taken from the camera in PSP patrol unit K1-15, the video does show a masked protester who approaches and spray-paints a small circle over the windshield of the trooper SUV, obscuring much of the camera’s field of vision.The footage, requested by WHYY News, does not appear to otherwise corroborate accounts of violence circulated by Mayor Jim Kenney’s office in justification of the tear-gassing. Officials said demonstrators, who were protesting systemic racism and police brutality in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, had trapped the lone trooper and begun rocking his vehicle. In the dashcam video, law enforcement can be heard describing the protests as “peaceful.”“While on the roadway, the crowd surrounded a State Trooper, who was alone and seated in his vehicle, and began rocking the vehicle, with the trooper having no safe means of egress,” said Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw in an initial statement, released on June 1, the day of the event.
There is footage showing people acting peaceful except…blocking an interstate, for goodness sake.
No local outlets mentioned the violence in Philadelphia days before the June 1, 2020, incident. Yes, it matters because the city was on edge. The first protest happened on May 30. They burned police cars, looted businesses, and set a building on fire.
On May 31, rioters continued to trash the city, looting and destroying businesses, burning police cars, and shutting down streets.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY