Antiwar Protestors Win $2 Million Judgment
 Thursday, August 21st, 2008  by Connie T.

Sarah Kunstler is the Co-Director of Off Center Media, and the Media Director for the William Moses Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice; she's a Criminal Defense and Civil Rights Attorney in New York; and she's a documentary filmmaker. She produced and directed Tulia, Texas: Scenes From the Drug War, about a small town that wrongfully charged 46 men -- 40 of whom were African-American -- with drug and cocaine charges.

She's the daughter of the famous civil rights attorney Bill Kunstler. Oh, and she has degrees from both Yale University and Columbia Law School.

So the New York Police Department probably picked the wrong peaceful protest to interrupt, in front of the Carlyle Building in Manhattan, 2003.

Because she was just one of a crowd of 52 people protesting the Iraq War, when the NYPD donned riot gear and surrounded the group, cordoned off the area and arrested everyone.

Sarah Kunstler filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in 2004, also known as Kunstler v. City of New York. And, this week, the City has agreed to pay $2 million to settle the suit.

A spokeswoman for the city's Law Department said that there is no "admission of liability on behalf of the city and the individual defendants. Although [the] defendants believe that they would ultimately have prevailed at a trial, the costs of going forward weighed in favor of a settlement at this time."

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