The Denver City Council on Tuesday approved paying a combined $825,000 in settlements to two demonstrators who separately sued the city over police conduct during the George Floyd protests in May 2020.
Youssef Amghar and the law firm Loevy & Loevy will receive $250,000 from the city’s dedicated liability claims account, and Megan Matthews and her attorney Ross Ziev will be paid $575,000 after Tuesday’s council decision. The settlements were unanimously approved as part of a block vote and were not called out for questions or comments by council members.
Amghar was one plaintiff in a suit first filed against the city on July 1, 2020. An amended version of the suit names the cities of Denver and Aurora, as well as more than a dozen officers from the Denver Police Department and supporting law enforcement agencies, as defendants.
The protests, focused on demands for social justice and police reform, began after a white Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, killed 44-year-old Black man George Floyd by kneeling on his neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds. Chauvin has since been convicted of murdering Floyd.
In Denver, the protests took over the area around the Colorado Capitol in late May and early June 2020, bringing thousands of people into the center of the city daily for more than a week. Amghar participated in the protests on May 30 and May 31 of that year, according to the original complaint.
On May 31, Amghar and other protesters were gathered near East Colfax Avenue and Lincoln Street when someone in the crowd threw a water bottle at a line of law enforcement officers nearby, according to the complaint. The officers then began firing pepper balls into the crowd.
As most of the crowd moved back, Amghar, who uses they-them pronouns, stood still with hands raised. Approaching officers shot them with pepper balls in the arms, legs, chest and face, hitting them more than a dozen times, the lawsuit alleges. Amghar screamed at officers that they served in the Marines, at which point officers threw tear gas canisters at Amghar’s feet.
Loevy & Loevy attorney Elizabeth Wang said that while Amghar’s portion of the complaint is now settled, the larger case will be going to trial next month.
“My client, Youssef Amghar, was shot over a dozen times with pepper balls while standing on a sidewalk with their hands up, protesting peacefully,” Wang said Tuesday night. “It is terribly frustrating that the officers who shot them were never held accountable, but they hope that this settlement will send a message that this kind of misconduct will not be tolerated.”
On Wednesday morning, officials with the Denver Department of Public Safety emailed The Denver Post a statement covering each of the police interactions that led to the settlement agreements approved Tuesday night.
That statement said that while other protesters around Amghar were engaged in illegal activity, Amghar was not doing anything illegal at the time they were shot with pepper balls. The statement said that an internal affairs investigation was unable to determine who fired those rounds.
“Following this incident, additional crowd control training was provided by the Denver Police Department to better inform the police response to volatile situations,” the statement said. “The Department of Safety is committed to learning from incidents like these to improve law enforcement response and ensure the safety of those we serve.”
Matthews originally filed her suit against the city, Denver police Chief Paul Pazen and other, unidentified law enforcement officers in March 2021. She attended the protests in downtown Denver on May 28 and 29, 2020, focusing on providing first aid and other assistance, according to her suit.
On the second day, she was hit in the face with a rubber bullet fired by an unidentified law enforcement officer. The impact broke her nose and another bone in her face, damaged her eye, gave her a concussion and opened up a cut that required stitches, according to the complaint. She later underwent at least two surgeries to repair the damage.
“This police aggression continued throughout the downtown Denver George Floyd protests without regard to the constitutional rights of protesters and bystanders including Ms. Matthews,” her attorney wrote in the original complaint.
The safety department, in its statement Wednesday, identified the projectile that injured Matthews as a 40 mm round.
Tuesday’s payments come weeks after the council approved paying a $500,000 settlement to Michael Acker, a Black college student who was injured after a Denver police officer shot him with 40 mm foam projectile during the protests. The attorneys representing Acker promised more lawsuits to come related to police conduct during the demonstrations.
There is no evidence Matthews was doing anything other than peacefully protesting when she was hit with the projectile, according to the safety department. Again, the department was unable to identify who fired the shot in order to investigate further but the department has since banned the use of 40 mm launchers in crowd control situations, officials say.
The council approved a third settlement agreement as part of its block vote Tuesday night, this one unrelated to the protests.
Justin Lecheminant’s lawsuit against the city and five Denver Police Department officials stems from a traffic stop on Jan. 1, 2019. According to allegations outlined in a lawsuit , Officer Robert Blanc shocked Lecheminant with a Taser twice and kicked and punched him in the face repeatedly before arresting him. The incident happened in Lecheminant’s backyard after he drove away from the scene of a traffic stop earlier in the evening.
Tuesday’s agreement will pay Lecheminant and his lawyers with the firm Decker & Jones $450,000.
In Lucheminant’s case, safety department officials emphasized he was pulled over for driving with his headlights off and for nearly hitting a parked car before fleeing the scene. But the department acknowledged that the failure to open an internal affairs investigation into his arrest was an error.
“Following this incident, the department reviewed protocols for investigating use-of-force cases and will provide additional training for supervisors, including when cases should be referred to DPD Internal Affairs for further investigation,” the department’s statement said.
Updated Feb. 23, 2022 at 2:53 p.m. This story has been updated with comments and additional information from the Denver Department of Public Safety.
