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As G-8 looms, Chicago to pay $6.2 million for mass arrests

Feb. 10 at 7:15 a.m.

Bob Graham, a 62-year-old retired teacher from Naperville, is one of the approximately 800 plantiffis in the city's $6.2 million settlement of the war protest case."In a way I feel badly because this is a whole bunch of wasted taxpayer money," said Graham, who was arrested and detained but not charged that night. "But don't get me wrong when I say this — it's money that was wasted by the Chicago police decision (to arrest protesters)." (Scott Strazzante/Chicago Tribune)

When Chicago agreed Thursday to pay $6.2 million to settle a lawsuit over police conduct at a war protest nine years ago, both city officials and demonstrators were looking ahead to the May gathering of world leaders in Chicago.

About 800 people were detained during the 2003 Iraq war demonstration, and 500 of them arrested, in an action that a federal appellate justice last year ruled was unjustified.

Some of the plaintiffs in the case, who stand to receive payouts of up to $15,000, are uncomfortable with the expense to taxpayers. But one of them, Bob Graham, a 62-year-old retired teacher from Naperville, said the behavior of police and city decision-makers that night needed to be punished.

Read more at the Chicago Tribune.