Seattle: racial justice protesters who sued police win $10m payout

Protesters filed lawsuit over use of flash-bang grenades, projectiles and other weapons during 2020 George Floyd demonstrations

Seattle has agreed to pay $10m to 50 demonstrators who sued over the police department’s heavy-handed response to racial justice protests in 2020, in a settlement announced by attorneys from both sides on Wednesday.

The protesters were among tens of thousands who rallied downtown and in the Capitol Hill neighborhood for weeks following the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police – a period that saw Seattle’s police department abandon its East Precinct building as well as the establishment of the “Capitol Hill Occupied Protest”, a six-block zone taken over by protesters.