The city of Portland will pay out $938,330 to settle a lawsuit from journalists and legal observers who were attacked and threatened with arrest for covering the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in Portland.

The legal settlement, approved by the Portland City Council on an 11-1 vote Wednesday, stems from a case brought against the city nearly five years ago in June 2020 by the ACLU of Oregon, the law firm of BraunHagey & Borden, and civil rights defense organization Public Accountability.

The settlement is the largest payout from the city over bodily injuries and civil rights violations incurred from Portland Police Bureau during the 2020 protests.

The complaint detailed multiple instances of journalists, including some working for the Mercury at the time, who were rushed and knocked down by police, tear gassed, beaten, shot with projectiles, and threatened with arrest while trying to photograph and film police activity during the protests.

The Mercury’s parent company at the time, Index Newspapers, was a party to the suit, but was later dismissed from the case

According to the ACLU of Oregon, the terms of the settlement require the city to adhere to current policy protections for journalists and legal observers who document and record protests in the future. The agreement also includes “monetary relief for the journalists and legal observers who Portland police injured in 2020.”

Before Wednesday’s vote, an attorney representing the city told the Council some of the claims in the initial suit that sought changes in policing practices were later dismissed by a judge who determined that changes in state law, combined with internal policy changes within PPB, were sufficient to prevent similar instances of excessive force by PPB in the future. 

The city’s risk management team reviewed the claims in the lawsuit to determine the best course of legal action, concluding their investigation “indicates there is risk the City may be found liable.”

“Therefore, in order to avoid the risk of an adverse jury award, it is prudent to compromise the lawsuit at this time” an ordinance prepared for Council states. The city’s legal counsel confirmed some of the claims included accompanying video evidence.

In all, the settlement will go to nine plaintiffs: ACLU legal observers Doug Brown and Kat Mahoney, along with independent journalists Tuck Woodstock, Sergio Olmos, Justin Yau, Brian Conley, Alex Tracy, Mathieu Lewis-Rolland, and John Rudoff.

After the lawsuit was filed in 2020, the city was mandated by a restraining order to temporarily cease the police tactics called out in the complaint as unconstitutional. The city also agreed to implement a more lengthy preliminary injunction that prohibited police from arresting or threatening to arrest any journalist or legal observer without probable cause. The injunction also stipulated that police could not use physical force, seize equipment, prevent recording, or clear journalists or legal observers from a scene. That injunction remained in place until 2023.

Kelly Simon is the legal director for the ACLU of Oregon. Simon cited the right to record police in public spaces as “a critical part of police accountability,” noting it was a recording that captured George Floyd’s murder. 

“A free media ensures that the public always has a watchdog that can investigate and report on government wrongdoing, like the violent police backlash we saw and experienced in 2020,” Simon said while addressing the Council Wednesday. “A free press ensures we have access to the truth, even when that truth does not serve the narratives that those who abuse power would prefer to tell us.”

She urged city leaders to approve the settlement to avoid any additional financial or emotional burden to Portland taxpayers.

Complaint: Journalists beaten, tear gassed, and arrested while documenting police activity 

The complaint outlined several instances of police ignoring media and legal observers’ rights, and in some cases, treating them as non-compliant protesters. 

“In addition to intentionally targeting reporters and observers, the police are using indiscriminate force to punish them along with demonstrators,” the lawsuit noted. “For instance, on June 2, the police sprayed a large group of protesters with tear gas from all sides in what is known as a ‘kettling’ or ‘killbox’ military strategy. Killboxing protesters cannot disperse them. Its sole purpose is to inflict pain and suffering.” That particular incident, which included Mercury reporters, saw several journalists and observers gassed.

In another incident, freelance journalist Sergio Olmos, whose nightly video streams of the protests were widely viewed online across the US, was beaten with a truncheon and threatened with tear gas, despite having a clearly visible press pass. 

The following night, another independent journalist was “attacked with a wooden bat” and “sprayed in the face with tear gas or pepper spray while he was trying to walk away from [police]," the lawsuit alleges, providing video footage of the incident.

On that same evening, Doug Brown, a former Mercury reporter and volunteer legal observer with the ACLU, was targeted and fired at directly by police with a flash bang grenade, despite wearing a blue vest that clearly identified him as a legal observer, according to the lawsuit. 

“Then, [police] began physically clearing people out of the park. Mr. Brown complied with their directive and moved with the crowd, but because he was present as an observer and not a protester, he continued filming and observing how the police enforced their order,” the complaint alleges. When police began a “massed charge” toward the crowd to clear them from one block to another, Brown continued to observe and record, the complaint said. “For that, the police beat him, too.”

The next night, on June 13, Oregonian photographer Beth Nakamura reported being slammed in the back with a truncheon.

“She had her hands up, press pass in hand, and was saying ‘press, press,’ the lawsuit noted, citing tweets from the photojournalist at the time. “The officer responded: ‘I don’t give a fuck.’”

The latest settlement follows a string of lawsuits and legal payouts related to policing of the 2020 protests. According to city records provided to the Mercury in 2024, Portland has logged over 250 complaints of police misconduct toward protesters, media, and bystanders. 

The heavy use of force and chemical irritants also triggered the US Department of Justice to admonish the city for its crowd control methods during that time. The DOJ found PPB ran afoul of a longstanding consent decree it has with the federal government. 

“Journalism is not a crime. It’s a fundamental First Amendment right, and in fact, it’s the only profession that’s explicitly mentioned in the Bill of Rights,” Athul Acharya, an attorney with Public Accountability, said Wednesday, speaking before the Council. “Being a legal observer isn’t a crime either. Journalists and legal observers are a key part of accountability at protests for everyone.”

What’s changed since 2020?

City staff noted $4.5 million has already been paid out to settle bodily injury and civil rights violation claims against PPB since 2020, as well as property damage claims unrelated to the protests. That figure doesn’t include the settlement approved Wednesday.

Another $6.9 million has been spent on legal costs and expenses.

“I feel compelled to note that this is a time when freedom of the press is under assault in a way that we probably have not seen since the first World War. And if I were a praying man, I would pray that we still have a free press four years from now.”-Councilor Steve Novick

Councilors asked what PPB is doing to prevent the city from paying out another legal claim related to police conduct during protests.

Last year, PPB incorporated body cameras into its everyday policing–a move the bureau says will boost transparency and accountability. 

“We’ve changed our training as well," PPB Commander Craig Dobson said Wednesday. “We have accepted the National Tactical Officers Association’s standards. We actually train our normal officers to a standard that a tier three team would be, which is eight hours a year.” Dobson said the reconstituted Rapid Response team, which responds to large, public order events like protests, receives 96 hours of training.  

Just one person, Councilor Loretta Smith, voted against the legal settlement payout. She didn't provide a reason for her vote. Other councilors, like Angelita Morillo and Mitch Green, noted their firsthand experience with police conduct during the city’s nightly protests, confirming similar accounts to the ones described in the multi-plaintiff lawsuit.

It wasn’t just defense attorneys banging the drum about the need for media protections. 

Councilor Steve Novick, who co-chairs the Council’s Public Safety Committee, praised the “widespread support” for the settlement.

“I feel compelled to note that this is a time when freedom of the press is under assault in a way that we probably have not seen since the first World War,” Novick said. “And if I were a praying man, I would pray that we still have a free press four years from now.”