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Overnight Open Thread: More fun with dying newspapers (genghis) »
April 18, 2009
NYC "greiving while ethnic" case settles
From what I can tell, this sounds like a favorable outcome.
The settlement was on two levels: the 6 boys and girls (under 16 years of age) who either were not charged or were given desk appearance tickets and later dismissed without appearing, but were in custody from two to six hours, cuffed to a pipe or a Snapple machine, each settled for $9,000. The older ones who had formal charges issued against them for unlawful assembly and disorderly conduct settled for $20K.
All of the criminal charges against these 16 were dismissed.
If
Bob Herbert's column about the incident is even remotely accurate, it sounds like the cops fucked up bad.
One of the engineers I worked on the Space Shuttle with at Rockwell back in the 80's, who happened to be black, was walking down the street in Downey one day toting a new battery for his car and the Downey PD swooped down on him with guns drawn. Their excuse was there had been a robbery and he fit the description of the perp. Pretty lame. What sort of perp is going to flee the scene of a robbery toting a heavy ass car battery? The cop's excuse didn't pass the sniff test.