Rewarding raucous NYC provocateurs with $6M in taxpayer money is insanity
They advertised the protest with FTP — “F–k the police” — and put it out on social media with the statement, “We talking about a revolution god dammit!”
It was scheduled for June 4, 2020, at 6:30 p.m. in Mott Haven, The Bronx. That itself was a provocation — close to the 8 p.m. curfew the city had instituted after a week of protests and looting following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Now you, the taxpayers, will be giving these radicals $6 million.
This is the madness of our lawsuit-obsessed, narcissistic society that a group of people who took to the streets to provoke the police are being paid because they provoked the police.
Media coverage of the Mott Haven arrests shows officers swinging batons and binding protesters with zip ties.
The lawyers are happy for the propaganda, but the pictures miss the context of the evening.
It had been a week of protests and marches, which tied up the city and allowed cover for criminals intent on vandalizing and looting.
Even progressive then-Mayor Bill de Blasio had had enough and introduced a curfew.
The first two nights, that rule was widely ignored, especially by left-wing politicians who, rather than call for calm, riled up the crowd.
Police vehicles were burned. A couple of lawyers were caught with Molotov cocktails.
Cops were spat upon and slurred as “pigs.”
The Mott Haven protest overtly called for violence with its flaming van, but the NYPD heard other, quieter rumblings of anarchy as well.
“In this particular incident, we had information regarding the intent to destroy property, injure cops and to cause mayhem,” then-Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said after the arrests. “This wasn’t . . . about protests, this was about tearing down society.”
The protesters marched down East 136th Street. Activists claim that at 10 minutes to 8, they were “kettled,” that is, blocked on all sides by police.
Yet the crowd had showed no signs of dispersing, and likely wasn’t going to go home, just as protesters around the city had resisted the curfew.
As the clock struck the hour, police rushed in with nightsticks and rounded up about 300 people.
No one was seriously injured. Most were let go after a few hours.
The protesters were begging to be arrested.
They were breaking the curfew, taunting the police — and the whole purpose of civil protest is attention.
They turned Mott Haven into a new rallying cry. But now that’s not good enough.
No, their “human rights” were violated, because after a week of marches, rallies and general accommodation, the mayor and the police finally decided to clear the streets.
So they have to be paid.
A settlement offer before the court would give each of them $21,500 — a $6 million total bill for taxpayers and, according to one lawyer, a figure believed to be the largest-ever per-person payout for a class-action lawsuit arising from a mass arrest in New York City history.
They don’t deserve a dime.
Most galling about this episode is how these national protests not only upended cities, they led to “defunding the police” and other “reforms” that led to a new wave of gang violence and crime.
They protested the death of a black man, then introduced policies that led to the murders of hundreds more young black men. That’s the price everyone has paid.
