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‘Molotov cocktails aren’t free’: Seattle caves, agrees to REWARD protestors $10M for 2020 BLM riots

January 26, 2024 | | Print Article

Seattle became on Wednesday the latest city to reward Black Lives Matter (BLM) protestors with millions of dollars for causing chaos following the death of George Floyd in 2020.

Fifty BLM protestors sued Seattle’s police department alleging they used excessive force as the city burned.

City Attorney Ann Davison said that forking over $10 million to the rioters was in the city’s “best financial” interest.

“This decision was the best financial decision for the City considering risk, cost, and insurance,” Davison said in a press release announcing the agreement. “The case has been a significant drain on the time and resources of the City and would have continued to be so through an estimated three-month trial that was scheduled to begin in May.”

According to the release, the case involved “hundreds of interactions between the plaintiffs and law enforcement officers; more than a million pages of records; more than 10,000 videos; hundreds of witness interviews; [and] extensive court filings.”

The City of Seattle “admits no wrongdoing in the case,” the release states.

“This settlement resolves the majority of the remaining claims arising out of the 2020 demonstration period and is a big step toward allowing the City to focus on the important work of today, while moving forward from events four years ago,” Davison said.

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As BizPac Review previously reported, Seattle already had to pay residents and businesses $3.6 million to settle a lawsuit brought after protestors took over a block of Seattle in the summer of 2020 and renamed it the “Capitol Hill Occupied Protest,” or “CHOP.”

“The rioters forced police out of the area, where multiple people were shot and two were murdered,” Blaze Media recalls.

Plaintiffs in the case against the city’s police department included “a woman who had a heart attack when she was struck in the chest by an SPD blast ball, a man who was hospitalized in a coma after his arrest and a veteran who uses a cane and was ‘gassed and tackled because he didn’t retreat fast enough,'” the Seattle Times reports. “Others included a teenager whose finger was partially blown off by a blast ball and ‘dozens of others who suffered permanent hearing loss, broken bones, concussion, wounds, bruising and emotional damage’ at the hands of Seattle officers, the plaintiffs’ lawyers said.”

Though it’s considered to be one of the “wokest” cities in the nation, Seattle wasn’t the first to pay off BLM “victims.”

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In March, New York City gave roughly 330 BLM protestors $21,500 each in what was hailed as a “historic” settlement against the New York Police Department. The class-action lawsuit accused the NYPD of wrongfully surrounding and brutalizing activists during a June 2020 Black Lives Matter protest.


Weeks later, Philadelphia reached a seven-figure settlement with BLM protesters related to “physical and emotional injuries” suffered in 2020 as they blocked traffic on a busy interstate highway.

After taking a dousing of pepper spray and tear gas, those activists received a $9.25 million payday.

On X, the Seattle settlement sparked new fury.

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Melissa Fine
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