The City of Seattle agreed to settle a lawsuit with business owners and residents over the city's 2020 handling of the so-called autonomous zone protests originally dubbed the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP).
Businesses and residents of Seattle’s Capitol Hill "will now be compensated for the City’s mishandling of CHOP that resulted in a significant increase in crime and even loss of life," attorney Angelo Calfo said in a statement, according to The Seattle Times.
More than a dozen business owners and residents in the Capitol Hill neighborhood filed a lawsuit against the city over the city’s policies that "effectively authorized the actions of the CHOP participants," according to the suit.
The city announced the settlement totals $3.65 million, which includes $600,000 in penalties for the deletion of thousands of texts by city leaders, including former Mayor Jenny Durkan, The Seattle Times reported.
