Protestors are kettled behind fencing by the NYPD on the Brooklyn Bridge after being stopped during an Occupy Wall Street march across. Photo by James Fassinger
Comments from the Partnership for Civil Justice on this decision:
Late yesterday, in a shocking and unusual move, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for Second Circuit reversed its own earlier decision in the class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of approximately 700 Occupy Wall Street protesters arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge in October 2011.
The Court has abruptly doubled back on itself to tell the people of New York that if they participate in a police-led and escorted march, peaceful and compliant with all directives from the police, they can be subject to sudden corralling and mass arrest by the NYPD without any notice that such permission to proceed has been revoked or opportunity to disperse.
This is a dangerous ruling that imperils the fundamental right to participate in peaceful free speech and assembly but the PCJF is standing firm to fight against this injustice. We need your help. Please give today and stand with PCJF in this struggle to protect free speech and the Constitution.
It is a telling ruling in the current political context. While the people of the country are crying out for police reform, the judiciary is unwilling to hold the police accountable for egregious violations of people’s rights.
In August 2014, the same panel ruled 2-1 in favor of the constitutional rights of peaceful protesters, upholding a lower court ruling that had allowed the case to proceed over the NYPD’s efforts to have the case dismissed.
The De Blasio administration, intentionally adopting the same path as the Bloomberg administration, sought and obtained an order for an en banc (full court) review of that decision. The Court of Appeals was to issue a schedule for those en banc proceedings, which would have allowed the Plaintiffs to be heard, when the panel suddenly reversed itself.
This is an extraordinary ruling procedurally that did not even allow the Plaintiffs to respond to the NYPD’s inaccurate presentation to the Court. Moreover, the panel issued its rehearing ruling without even a motion for a panel rehearing being filed by the City, which had sought only en banc review, and again without providing Plaintiffs an opportunity to respond as would ordinarily be allowed.
We are evaluating all avenues in our fight to vindicate this constitutional deprivation for the people who suffered this great injustice.
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NEW YORK — In a surprising about-face, a federal appeals court has dismissed a lawsuit brought by Occupy Wall Street demonstrators against the New York City Police Department over mass arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge.
Many of the more than 700 marchers arrested said they were essentially tricked onto the iconic span by police in October 2011. Last August, three judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit allowed the demonstrators’ false-arrest lawsuit to proceed. But they reversed themselves in another ruling Monday.
When the hundreds of demonstrators approached the bridge during a march on Oct. 1, 2011, NYPD officers on the scene retreated — a move that demonstrators say they took as implicit permission to enter the bridge’s main deck. The court found, however, that “it cannot be said that the police’s behavior was anything more than — at best for plaintiffs — ambiguous, or that a reasonable officer would necessarily have understood that the demonstrators would reasonably interpret the retreat as permission to use the roadway.”
The mass arrests, which came in the early days of Occupy Wall Street’s monthslong protest against corporate greed, served as an important rallying cry for the movement.
In a statement, the plaintiffs’ lawyers at the nonprofit Partnership for Civil Justice Fund decried the 2nd Circuit’s “extraordinary” change of heart and said they were considering options for a response.
“The Court has abruptly doubled back on itself to tell the people of New York that if they participate in a police-led and escorted march, peaceful and compliant with all directives from the police, they can be subject to a shocking corralling and mass arrest by the NYPD,” said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, the group’s executive director.
New York City, meanwhile, hailed its victory in sidestepping what might have been a significantly expensive lawsuit.
“As we have consistently maintained, the alleged facts and multiple videotapes of the events do not show that the plaintiffs were ever granted permission to march onto and block all vehicular traffic on the roadway of the Brooklyn Bridge,” city Law Department spokesman Nick Paolucci said in a statement.
Years after the protest movement petered out, New York City is still facing a number of lawsuits over the NYPD’s policing of Occupy demonstrations. The city has spent more than $1 million on settlements in lawsuits related to Occupy Wall Street.
The city has recently engaged in settlement talks over the notorious pepper-spraying of protester Kaylee Dedrick, but Ron Kuby, one of Dedrick’s attorneys, told HuffPost that no agreement has been reached.
