The Minneapolis city attorney’s office is to pay seven ‘zombies’ and their attorney compensation of US$165,000 (£105,868) after they were arrested and jailed for two days for dressing up like zombies to protest against mindless consumerism.
When arrested in downtown Minneapolis in 2006 most of the protesters were wearing thick white powder and fake blood on their faces along with dark eye makeup. They were carrying four bags of sound equipment to amplify music iPod music and walking strangely. Police arrested them on the grounds that they were carrying equipment that simulated ‘weapons of mass destruction.’
The zombies were never charged with any crime.
U.S. District Judge Joan Ericksen previously dismissed the zombies’ compensation claim, but it was brought back in February this year by a three-judge panel of the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which concluded that police had no probable cause to arrest the seven people. This decision left the case open for a federal trial, which has been negated by the settlement.
One of the zombies, Raphi Rechitsky, 27, of Minneapolis, was reported to have said that he felt great that the city was now being held accountable for the actions of the police. He added that he and his fellow zombies had just been performing street theatre when they were arrested.
Rechitsky is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the University of Minnesota.
Minneapolis City Attorney Susan L. Segal said it was in the city’s best interests to settle the case. She said that they believed the police acted reasonably, but that they never know what a jury is going to decide. If a jury had concluded that the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights had been violated, the payout could have been quite substantial, she said.
