Philadelphia To Pay $9.25M To Police Brutality Victims

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To let “back the blue” conservatives tell it, the nationwide protests that erupted in the wake of George Floyd‘s death were nothing more than displays of Black Lives Matter terrorism where public and private property was being destroyed, lawlessness was rampant and police officers were becoming attack victims while trying to keep the peace. Never mind the fact that the vast majority of 2020 protests were peaceful and uneventful (and thus not newsworthy). You’ll never convince bootlicker America that many of the clashes between cops and protesters were prompted by police aggression. They’ll never believe that police brutality was happening during protests against police brutality.

Fortunately, in Philadelphia, protesters who were attacked by those tasked with protecting and serving them didn’t have to convince cop-humping conservatives that police officers were the aggressors during many instances of civil unrest. Instead, they were able to make the city of Philadelphia say “I’m sorry” with its wallet.

According to Penn Live, the city has agreed to pay a combined $9.25 million to hundreds of protesters who were teargassed, struck with rubber bullets and detained by Philadelphia police, which has a long history of committing civil rights violations against citizens, particularly Black citizens.

From Penn Live:

In a settlement order signed Monday by U.S. District Magistrate Judge David R. Strawbridge, the city agreed to pay plaintiffs in four federal civil rights lawsuits, as well as contribute $500,000 to a fund that will provide counseling to victims of police violence and offer community-led programming. That money will be distributed to grassroots organizations via grants through the Bread & Roses Community Fund.

The damages awarded to each of the about 350 plaintiffs vary depending on the circumstances of their cases, attorneys said during a news conference at the Paul Robeson House and Museum in West Philadelphia.

The lawsuits focused on two incidents: the mass teargassing of protesters on I-676 on June 1, 2020, and the police use of military-style weaponry on demonstrators and neighborhood residents while attempting to curb looting and violence along the 52nd Street corridor in West Philadelphia, a historically Black neighborhood.

“This power must not go unchecked. It must be confronted,” said Paul Hetznecker, a member of a team of attorneys that represented 240 of the plaintiffs in the case.

Even Philadelphia’s mayor, Jim Kenney, was unwilling to put up a front on behalf of violent Philly cops or their “blue lives matter” acolytes. Instead, Kelly said that “the pain and trauma caused by a legacy of systemic racism and police brutality against Black and Brown Philadelphians is immeasurable.”

“While this is just one step in the direction toward reconciliation, we hope this settlement will provide some healing from the harm experienced by people in their neighborhoods in West Philadelphia and during demonstrations on I-676 in 2020,” Kenney said.

It’s really simple, folks. Even rioting and looting shouldn’t give officers of the law free reign to start attacking people at random regardless of if they were participating in violence or not.

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