The City of Seattle, Washington has agreed to pay $10 million in compensation to a group of Black Lives Matter rioters who claimed they were injured during clashes with police in 2020.

On Wednesday, the city announced that Ann Davison, a city attorney, had agreed to settle out of court with 50 plaintiffs who had sued the city for damages after officers cleared thousands of rioters out of downtown Seattle during the summer of 2020.

During the Black Lives Matter riots in Seattle, part of the larger nationwide riots which followed the death of George Floyd earlier that year, rioters took over a section of the downtown Seattle neighborhood Capitol Hill, forming massive encampment dubbed the Capitol Hill Occupied Zone or the Capitol HIll Autonomous Zone.

For weeks, beginning in early June, rioters maintained control over the zone, while police abandoned the East Precinct building.

In July, however, police, under then police chief Carmen Best, reestablished control over the zone, evicting thousands of squatters and clashing with rioter. During the clashes, rioters burned multiple police cars and attempted to set the East Precinct building on fire.

Fifty of the rioters who claimed to have suffered injuries during the clashes sued the city.

The injuries the plaintiffs claimed to have suffered ranged from cardiac arrest – after the rioter was struck by a non-lethal riot dispersal device – to broken bones, concussions, bruises, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

“This decision was the best financial decision for the City considering risk, cost, and insurance,” said City Attorney Davison.

“The case has been a significant drain on the time and resources of the City and would have continued to be so through an estimated three-month trial that was scheduled to begin in May.”

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