Boston is cutting an $850,000 check to settle a federal civil‑rights lawsuit brought by four people who say city police beat and pepper‑sprayed them during demonstrations on May 31, 2020. The settlement, announced Tuesday, April 28, 2026, wraps up claims tied to protests at Boston Common and nearby streets after George Floyd’s murder. Plaintiffs Jasmine Huffman, Justin Ackers, Caitlyn Hall and Benjamin Chambers‑Maher said officers swung wooden batons and used pepper spray as crowds were trying to clear out.
According to The Boston Globe, the settlement specifically names three officers: Michael Burke, Edward Joseph Nolan and Michael H. McManus, whom the complaint accused of striking or spraying people who were attempting to leave the area. One of the protesters' attorneys, Mark Loevy‑Reyes, said "we all have a right to expect better of our law enforcement officers." The Globe noted the payout brings nearly five years of litigation to a close.
WBUR reports the agreement does not include any admission of wrongdoing by the city, even as lawyers for the plaintiffs said body‑camera and other video evidence backed up their claims. Attorneys at Loevy & Loevy said several plaintiffs turned over footage that, they contend, shows officers striking or spraying people who were complying with dispersal orders. WBUR added that city officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Plaintiffs' accounts and evidence
Each of the four plaintiffs described a separate run‑in with police while trying to leave the Common, The Globe reported. Ackers said he was struck from behind with a wooden baton while riding a moped on Tremont Street. Huffman said she was hit near the Park Street MBTA station and later claimed officers stepped on her hands. Hall alleged she was struck in the face in Downtown Crossing and needed stitches. Chambers‑Maher, a disabled veteran, said he was pepper‑sprayed and hit by a police bicycle, leaving him temporarily blinded and bruised. The complaint included police body‑camera footage, and none of the four were charged with crimes, according to The Boston Globe.
Court fight and what's next
The case survived multiple attempts by city attorneys to get it tossed. In October 2025, a federal judge ruled the lawsuit could move forward and found that a jury could reasonably conclude the department's crowd‑control tactics violated the protesters' rights, according to Boston.com. Plaintiffs' lawyers argued the complaint highlighted broader systemic problems, including inadequate planning and a lack of investigation into use‑of‑force incidents. The settlement spares the city a public trial and the testimony that would have come with it, while leaving open the question of whether the payout will lead to any internal changes or policy reviews.
Why it matters
Legal observers say Boston's deal fits into a broader national pattern of cities paying out over their 2020 protest responses. Axios recently reported that an appellate decision left Denver on the hook for roughly $14 million tied to its handling of 2020 protests, and The Guardian has tracked nearly $150 million in protest‑related settlements nationwide since 2020. Civil‑rights attorneys say those numbers can push departments to rethink training and crowd‑control tactics, even when municipalities refuse to put "wrongdoing" in writing.
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