On July 31st, 2012, a resident of New York who was arrested while participating in a the Occupy Wall Street protest filed a lawsuit in the Southern District of New York United States District Court under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the city of New York. The plaintiff, represented by private counsel, ...
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On July 31st, 2012, a resident of New York who was arrested while participating in a the Occupy Wall Street protest filed a lawsuit in the Southern District of New York United States District Court under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the city of New York. The plaintiff, represented by private counsel, asked the court for compensatory and punitive damages, lawyers fees, and injunctive relief requiring that the city of New York create and implement a policy regarding the use of force upon persons involved in public demonstrations that conforms with federal constitutional standards and to create and implement reporting systems to record all uses of force by NYPD officers during public demonstrations. He claimed that his first, fourth, and fourteenth amendment rights were violated.
Specifically, the plaintiff claimed that he was sprayed with pepper spray by a New York City police officer while compliantly demonstrating with the Occupy Wall Street protest group. He said that the pepper spray hit his right eye and burned his face, arms, hands, and lungs. He claimed that he had to miss three days of work as a result of this incident, and still experienced some blurry vision and nervousness and increased heart rate around police officers.
On November 13th, 2012, the District Court (Judge Robert W. Sweet) consolidated this case with several others filed with regards to the same incident including
Lawler v. City of New York and
Elliot v. City of New York.
Following multiple settlement conferences, the parties reached a settlement agreement on July 8, 2015. The court entered the stipulation and dismissed the case on July 23, 2015, retaining jurisdiction over the matter for the purpose of enforcing the agreement for an undisclosed amount of time.
The details of the settlement are not publicly available. According to
The New York Times, the defendant paid a total of $332,500 in damages (between $52,000 to $60,000 to each plaintiff). Additionally, the New York Times reported that the NYPD released a statement saying that the NYPD has not altered its pepper spray guidelines.
Megan Dolan - 05/27/2014
Sean Mulloy - 11/06/2017
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