OAKLAND, Calif. -- The Oakland City Council agreed Tuesday to pay more than $1 million to settle a lawsuit filed by a dozen Occupy Oakland protesters who alleged they were the victims of excessive force by police during clashes with officers in 2011.
The $1.17 million payout, which also requires police to adhere to their crowd-control policies, follows criticism by outside experts who said the Oakland Police Department was severely understaffed and insufficiently prepared to deal with the protesters.
The plaintiffs filed suit in U.S. District Court in San Francisco over their treatment by police on Oct. 25, 2011, when officers clashed with protesters who tried to reoccupy a City Hall camp that officers had cleared earlier in the day. Also included in the suit were allegations that police had acted improperly after a general strike on Nov. 2, 2011, devolved into rioting and more confrontations with police early the next morning.
Two plaintiffs, Suzi Spangenberg and Sukay Sow, who said they were injured by flashbang grenades lobbed by police on Oct. 25, 2011, will get $500,000 and $210,000, respectively. Sow said she suffered a large, second-degree chemical burn on her foot.
Another plaintiff, Timothy Scott Campbell, alleged that Officer Victor Garcia shot him in the groin with a beanbag fired by a 12-gauge shotgun while Campbell was filming a police line at Frank Ogawa Plaza outside City Hall on Nov. 3. Under the settlement, Campbell will receive $150,000.
Other plaintiffs will receive between $20,000 and $75,000.
"We're very pleased with the result," said Rachel Lederman, an attorney with the National Lawyers Guild in San Francisco, which represented the plaintiffs. "This is really a good decision by the city and the Police Department to take some responsibility for the fiasco of their ill-planned response to Occupy Oakland and to take responsibility by compensating some of the people who were the most seriously injured."
One of the reports that criticized the department for its "flawed responses" to Occupy was written by Thomas Frazier, a consultant who is now the compliance director for the Oakland police, charged with overseeing court-mandated reforms.
Copyright 2013 - San Francisco Chronicle
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
