Demand for Reparations on Behalf of the Mott Haven Collective

January 26, 2021

Mayor Bill de Blasio
City Hall
New York, NY 10007

Comptroller Scott M. Stringer
Office of the Comptroller of New York City
One Centre Street
New York, NY 10007 

Re: Demand for Reparations on behalf of the Mott Haven Collective 

Dear Mayor de Blasio and Comptroller Stringer: 

We represent two dozen people injured by the New York City Police Department  (“NYPD”) at protests in the Bronx last spring who submitted notices of claim under General  Municipal Law Section 50-e (hereinafter the “Mott Haven Collective” or “Collective”). Twenty three members of the Mott Haven Collective were brutalized by the NYPD at the June 4 protest  in the South Bronx. The one additional Collective member—a 38-year-old Bronx resident—was  assaulted by the NYPD days prior when she joined an impromptu Black Lives Matter protest.  Many members of the Mott Haven Collective did not know each other before the protests; it is a  group of predominantly Black and brown people who came together after being terrorized by the  NYPD to demand transformative change. We write on their behalf to ask the City to provide reparations to compensate the protesters who were injured, invest in the targeted community,  take responsibility for the attack, and fire those responsible. We hope you seize this opportunity  to show that racially-biased police violence in New York City will not be condoned.

Read our full demands here