City of Seattle settles BLM protesters' lawsuit for $10 million

https://www.columbian.com/news/2024/jan/25/city-of-seattle-settles-blm-protesters-lawsuit-for-10-million/

City of Seattle settles BLM protesters’ lawsuit for $10 million

By Mike Carter, The Seattle Times
Published: January 25, 2024, 7:33am

SEATTLE — The city of Seattle has agreed to pay $10 million to settle a lawsuit from a group of demonstrators injured by police during the 2020 uprising in protest of George Floyd’s murder.

The lawsuit, filed in King County Superior Court nearly three years ago, had cost the city millions of dollars in defense and expert witness fees, according to the Seattle law firm of Stritmatter Kessler Koehler Moore, which represented the protesters.

Among the 50 plaintiffs were a woman who had a heart attack when she was struck in the chest by an SPD blast ball, a man who was hospitalized in a coma after his arrest and a veteran who uses a cane and was “gassed and tackled because he didn’t retreat fast enough,” according to the attorneys.

Others included a teenager whose finger was partially blown off by a blast ball and “dozens of others who suffered permanent hearing loss, broken bones, concussion, wounds, bruising and emotional damage” at the hands of Seattle officers, the plaintiffs’ lawyers said.

…more…

(And City still refusing to admit ‘wrong doing’.)