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Showing Original Post only (View all)4 protesters awarded $185K over 2004 RNC arrests [View all]
Source: AP
NEW YORK (AP) Four people arrested at an anti-war march during the 2004 Republican National Convention have been awarded $185,000 in the first trial stemming from lawsuits over protest arrests surrounding the GOP gathering.
Coming about six months after the city reached an $18 million settlement with about 1,800 other RNC protesters, Wednesday's federal jury verdict caps a lingering chapter in the legal saga that followed the arrests, nearly all of which ended with cases dismissed or defendants acquitted.
The four plaintiffs in the trial had rejected the settlement. Jurors awarded each $40,000 in compensatory damages for being wrongfully arrested, more than what individual protesters got in the settlement, which included about $7 million in attorneys' fees. The jury also awarded a total of $25,000 in punitive damages against police Deputy Chief Thomas Monahan, who led the response to the march.
Still, "this is not about money. It's about stopping police abuses in squashing First Amendment rights," one of the protesters, Howard J. Gale of Seattle, said Friday.
Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/4-protesters-get-185000-over-convention-arrests