Multnomah County has agreed to pay $9,084,877.13 to settle a federal class-action lawsuit brought by hundreds of people who say they were trapped in their cells at the downtown jail while tear gas filled the building during the 2020 protests. The Multnomah County Board of Commissioners voted 4-0 without discussion Thursday to approve the county’s $594,224.88 share of the deal, with the remainder coming from the county’s insurance carrier.
The settlement was reported by KOIN on November 12, 2026, before The Oregonian/OregonLive detailed it on November 14, 2026. It covers more than 900 prisoners held at the Multnomah County Detention Center who were exposed to tear gas during the protests that erupted downtown that summer. According to the lawsuit, the chemical agents first began entering the jail through its ventilation system on May 29, 2020, and continued intruding on multiple occasions through late July, as reported by KOIN. Those demonstrations followed the May 25, 2020 killing of George Floyd, who died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck despite his pleas that he could not breathe, and Portland police and federal officers responded by firing tear gas repeatedly during the downtown unrest.
Screaming, Choking Inmates Pounded on Cell Doors
The lawsuit, filed in November 2020, alleged that Multnomah County, then-Sheriff Mike Reese and two former corrections supervisors failed to protect prisoners from the gas. U.S. Magistrate Judge Stacie F. Beckerman laid out some of the evidence behind those allegations in a 180-page opinion, citing accounts of prisoners in entire modules screaming, choking, coughing, begging for help, and pounding and kicking their doors as tear gas filled the detention center, according to the same reporting from The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Prisoners complained they could not breathe and suffered painful tear gas exposure for more than a month, and according to court records cited in that coverage, they said they were denied extra showers, clean clothes and linens even after their scrubs or blankets were drenched in the chemical. Attorney Nadia Dahab said prisoners were locked in their cells while tear gas entered through the vents, and that many feared for their lives, per the outlet’s report.
County Lawyers Cited Pandemic and Safety Concerns
Christopher Gilmore, who represented Multnomah County, the sheriff’s office, the former sheriff and jail commanders, argued in court filings that the protests and the COVID-19 pandemic created significant barriers to evacuating the jail. Court papers from Gilmore state that Reese rejected evacuating the facility because of COVID-19 risks, concerns about housing violent offenders elsewhere, medical and mental-health needs, and protest-related logistical difficulties. Gilmore also argued, according to court records, that the county took reasonable steps to minimize harm and that tear gas outside the jail was intermittent and dissipated once it was sprayed on the ground.
Those arguments did not persuade the court at an earlier stage of the case. Beckerman ruled last year that the lawsuit could proceed against Multnomah County, Reese and the two former corrections supervisors, rejecting the county’s motions to dismiss. She also ruled that the county, Reese, the chief corrections deputy and the jail commander were not entitled to qualified immunity, the legal doctrine that shields government officials from civil lawsuits for actions taken while performing their duties unless their conduct violates clearly established statutory or constitutional rights.
Attorneys Say Clients Waited Years to Be Heard
Attorney Joe Piucci said class members had waited more than five years for their experience to be taken seriously, and that he welcomed the county’s decision to resolve the case. Plaintiffs’ counsel has described the case as covering 912 people who were gassed in their cells over more than 30 nights during the summer of 2020, according to KOIN’s reporting.
The settlement covers people in custody at the downtown jail who were exposed to tear gas or other chemical agents between May 29 and July 29, 2020, a timeframe confirmed by the Davis et al. v. Multnomah County class-action notice. County spokesperson Denis Theriault declined to comment on the settlement while it awaits formal court approval. If Beckerman grants preliminary approval, class members are to receive notice explaining the settlement and how funds will be distributed, and potential class members may contact class counsel at [email protected] or [email protected].
Other Jail and Protest Settlements Set the Backdrop
The Multnomah County case lands alongside other costly reckonings over chemical agents used on people in custody or during protests. California tentatively agreed to pay $10 million to settle a class-action lawsuit over incarcerated women sprayed with tear gas and pepper spray at the Central California Women’s Facility in 2024, according to KQED. A separate lawsuit filed by 13 women injured in that same incident settled for $1.9 million in March, bringing the combined value of those settlements to nearly $12 million.
Closer to home, the city of Portland separately agreed in 2022 to pay $250,000 plus attorneys’ fees to settle a lawsuit filed by protesters in the early days of the 2020 demonstrations, as reported by OPB. That case, like the Multnomah County jail lawsuit, traced back to the city’s response to the unrest that followed Floyd’s death. The county’s settlement remains subject to approval from the court before any payments can move forward.
