City to Pay $2M to Antiwar Activists
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
The city has agreed to pay $2 million to settle a lawsuit claiming 52 anti-Iraq war activists were unjustly arrested, lawyers announced yesterday.
The activists were arrested in April 2003 outside the Manhattan offices of a military contractor, the Carlyle Group.
Lawyers who represented the activists said in a release that the tactics used by police at the demonstration were similar to those used a year later when thousands of activists were arrested during the 2004 Republican National Convention at Madison Square Garden.
They said the tactics included arresting people without any police warning or without providing an opportunity for anyone to leave.
Sarah Kunstler, who was arrested at the 2003 protest, said it was ironic that the settlement of the lawsuit took four years to achieve but still occurred faster than an end to the Iraq war. “We definitely see it as a victory,” Ms. Kunstler said.
A city law department senior counsel, Susan Halatyn, said the city did not admit liability in the settlement.
