The city of Denver was ordered to pay a group of 12 people 14 million dollars in damages after a jury found police used excessive force against protesters.
The jury of two men and six women, mostly white and drawn from around Colorado, returned its verdict after four hours of deliberations. Evidence included police and protester video of incidents.
It was thought to be the first trial in a lawsuit challenging officer tactics during the 2020 protests that erupted around the nation over the police killing of Floyd and other Black people.
The protesters were hit by everything from pepper spray to a bag filled with lead shot fired from a shotgun. The person who was hit in the head by the shotgun blast received the largest amount of damage.
The lawyers for the protesters had urged the jury to find the city liable during closing arguments.
He said after the verdict that a jury of regular citizens would take these rights very seriously.
The attorneys for the city she loves gaslighted the protesters during the trial, questioning their account of what happened. A lawyer for Denver called her a professional protester after she testified that she had attended protests since she was a child. She talked about how it meant to have the jury side with the protesters.
It feels like being seen.
The protesters said that police actions violated their rights to free speech and to be protected from unreasonable force. 11 of the protesters were found to have violated their rights and only one was found to have violated their free speech rights. The protesters claimed that Denver was responsible for the police actions through its policies, which included giving officers wide discretion in using what police call "less lethal" devices, failing to train officers on them, and not requiring them to use their body.
Denver admitted during the trial that it made mistakes at the protests, which it says were unprecedented in their size, duration and amount of violence and destruction. The state Capitol incurred over one million dollars in damage as protesters threw rocks, water bottles and canned food at officers. Lawyers for the protesters said they were not accused of being violent themselves.
Lindsay Jordan, one of Denver's lawyers, told jurors that a large training in crowd control in the spring of 2020 was canceled because of the upcoming presidential election. Thousands of people returned to exercise their free speech rights despite the force police used over the five days of demonstrations, despite the fact that mistakes made by officers during the protests do not automatically equate to constitutional violations.
She said that the violence and destruction that occurred around the community required intervention.
Five Denver police officers have been disciplined for their actions during the protests. A new officer was fired during the protests after posting a photo of himself and others dressed in tactical gear on social media with the comment "Let's start a riot."
Financial settlements, the departure of police chiefs and criminal charges have been the result of aggressive responses from officers to people protesting police brutality.
In Austin, Texas, officials have agreed to pay over $13 million to people injured in protests in May 2020, and 19 officers have been indicted for their actions against protesters. Two police officers in Dallas were accused of injuring protesters after firing less lethal weapons.
A federal judge dismissed most of the claims filed by activists and civil liberties groups over the forcible removal of protesters by police before Donald Trump walked to a church near the White House for a photo op.
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