The authorities in Denver permitted a $4.7 million settlement on Monday for protesters who have been detained for violating an emergency curfew throughout demonstrations over the killing of George Floyd in 2020, and later accused the police of utilizing extreme power.

The settlement, permitted by the Denver City Council, resolves a class-action lawsuit filed by protesters in opposition to the consolidated metropolis and county of Denver, which denies any legal responsibility or wrongdoing.

The Denver demonstrations have been a part of unrest in cities throughout the United States and past over the May 2020 death of Mr. Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, after a white police officer in Minneapolis held his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck as he gasped for breath. The officer, Derek Chauvin, was later convicted of homicide and sentenced to 22 and a half years in jail. Three different officers concerned in Mr. Floyd’s dying were each sentenced to several years in jail.

The settlement permitted on Monday is the second main victory for protesters who’ve criticized the Denver Police Department’s dealing with of the 2020 demonstrations. In a civil case final 12 months, a jury in federal court docket in Colorado ordered the Denver authorities to pay $14 million in damages to 12 protesters after discovering that law enforcement officials had used extreme power in opposition to them in 2020.

The settlement Monday ends a authorized course of involving separate circumstances that have been later merged into one. The plaintiffs embody union organizers, a lawyer, a former U.S. Marine, a journalist, a software program engineer and a enterprise proprietor.

Their legal professionals accused the police in a grievance of utilizing “violent crowd control tactics” in opposition to a whole bunch of protesters who gathered in late May and early June of 2020 to reveal in opposition to police brutality and racism in opposition to Black individuals within the United States. They mentioned the police fired tear gasoline, flashbang grenades, pepper balls, rubber bullets and different projectiles immediately at protesters with out giving them time to disperse.

The grievance additionally mentioned that law enforcement officials used violence to implement the emergency curfew in impact on the time, and that the curfew was “applied discriminatorily against protesters” in a means that violated their constitutional rights, together with the precise to free speech. More than 350 individuals have been arrested over a number of days in late May and early June, largely for violating a curfew that ran from May 30 to June 5, the grievance mentioned.

The Denver Police Department referred questions late Monday to town lawyer’s workplace, which didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. The metropolis lawyer’s workplace mentioned in June that it was dismissing 320 cases in opposition to individuals who had been arrested for curfew violations throughout the 2020 demonstrations however weren’t charged with extra crimes.

The workplace of Denver’s mayor, Mike Johnston, who was sworn in final month, didn’t reply to an inquiry in a single day.

The settlement agreement mentioned town denied that its emergency curfew had been “targeted for enforcement against anyone engaged in First Amendment or protest activity.”

The plaintiffs take a distinct view.

“Over 300 people were arrested for the simple act of protesting,” Elizabeth Wang, lead lawyer for the protesters and a associate on the Chicago legislation agency Loevy & Loevy, said in a statement that the agency launched Monday night on X, previously often known as Twitter.

“The First Amendment does not allow police to clear the streets of protesters simply because they do not agree with their message,” Ms. Wang added.