CityLab Daily: The Costs of Policing Lawsuits Are Piling Up
Also today: Can the bike boom keep going, and the algorithm that could get you back into the office.
A lawsuit alleges the NYPD unnecessarily used tools like batons and pepper spray on demonstrators at summer protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd.
Photographer: Scott Heins/Getty Images
Paying the price: Lawsuits alleging excessive force by law enforcement against protesters this year have been filed across the U.S., from Minneapolis and Omaha, Nebraska, to, most recently, New York. And the costs are adding up for cities, some of whom are already spending more than a third of their general funds on the police.
Law experts tell Fola Akinnibi that it would be in the economic interest of cities to address the underlying problems of police brutality instead of fighting court battles — especially at a time when state and local governments are projected to face hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue decline over the next two years because of the coronavirus pandemic. Today on CityLab: Lawsuits Over Protest Brutality Pile Up, Adding to Cities’ Police Costs