Oakland Police Department Settlement: City Agreed to Pay $1 Million To Protesters

[Stuart G]

Source: Huffington Post

Huffington Post:
Posted: 06/24/2013 9:12 pm EDT | Updated: 06/25/2013 5:27 am EDT

Aaron Sankin

The City of Oakland has agreed to pay approximately $1 million to end a lawsuit filed on behalf of 150 demonstrators alleging police misconduct in their 2010 mass arrest.

The preliminary settlement approved by a federal judge ends the class-action lawsuit filed by the National Lawyers Guild on behalf of 150 people arrested but not charged with a crime during a protest in November 2010. The protest followed the sentencing of former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle for the shooting death of Oscar Grant, which the demonstrators complained was unacceptably light.

During the demonstration, protesters said, police funneled them onto a side street, where officers surrounded them and announced they were under arrest.

"We were never given a warning or a chance to leave," Dan Spalding, a legal observer with the National Lawyers Guild who was present at the march, said in a statement Monday. "We were handcuffed and left sitting on the street and then in buses for a total of about eight hours without access to a bathroom. People urinated in their pants as we sat in the hot, crowded bus."


Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/24/oakland-police-department-settlement_n_3491842.html

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another link from the Oakland Tribune:

http://www.insidebayarea.com/breaking-news/ci_23530164/oakland-and-alameda-county-taxpayers-give-protesters-1

[Cal Carpenter]

1. I'd rather it came outta the pockets of the cops and 'leadership'

that turned things into such a clusterfuck rather than from the city coffers.

But this is a victory for democracy.

[marble falls]

2. It's not a victory for anybody. They'll do the same thing next time. Correction: the lawyers get...

30 to 40% of the award. The lawyers won.

[Stuart G]

3. Perhaps the lawyers get a lot.

But this does set a precedent at least in Oakland. Perhaps there will be some improvement. I think this is still significant.

[Randomthought]

4. non profit lawyers

The national Lawyers Guild is a non-profit.

[iamthebandfanman]

5. soo.. bought off again ??

sure sounds like a crappy deal for the people involved..
the lawyers take a huge chunk and leave what... 600,000 to divide among 150 people?

should have gone to trial. fuck 'em. how are they ever going to learn?

not by throwing tax money at people, that's for sure.

[Ash_F]

6. That officer spent 7 months in jail.

Think about it.