In the early days of the 2020 George Floyd protests, police followed freelance photographer Ambrose Cruz into a parking garage near the Capitol and shot him with PepperBalls, according to Cruz’s lawyer Elizabeth Wang.
The PepperBalls injured Cruz’s eye and bruised his face. Like dozens of protesters that night, police arrested Cruz for violating a curfew put in place by former Mayor Michael Hancock.
But prosecutors later dropped the charges, like they did with many arrests from that summer of protests. And last year, Cruz was part of a $4.72 million class action settlement involving more than 300 people arrested for violating curfew. Lawyers claimed police leadership told officers to only enforce the curfew for people who looked like protesters, violating their First Amendment rights.
Now, the city is paying Cruz another $437,500 over his injuries from that night. City Council approved the payment Monday.
It’s the latest in millions of dollars in settlements and lawsuits involving protesters, journalists and bystanders who sustained injuries by police during the protests.
Wang says it’s one of the biggest payouts to a person with injuries from police that did not require surgery.
“We're still reeling four years on from the actions of Denver and the DPD during the protests, and I can only hope that Denver has at least in some way learned its lesson from their experience during the protests and the aftermath,” Wang said.
The Denver Police Department declined to comment on the settlement.
