ABOUT US
Protest Testimony Project is part of the community engagement component of the settlement agreement addressing the NYPD’s response to the 2020 protests. The settlement was approved in February 2024, and changes began rolling out across the city in October 2025. Our role is to gather the experiences of people participating in First Amendment Activity and help ensure that the NYPD follows the terms of the settlement.
More About Us
We are plaintiffs’ representatives, community liaisons, organizers, and educators who have been part of this work since the protests themselves. We work alongside community partners across New York City. We are independent from the NYPD. The heart of our work is translating the settlement’s requirements into clear, accessible information—and creating ways for people to share what they are seeing in the streets, so community experience informs real oversight.
In practice, that means we teach, we explain, and we listen. Our workshops break down the basics and your rights. Our community conversations create space to reflect on what protest looks like on the ground right now.
Key Highlights of the Settlement’s Protest Protections:
- De-escalation first and no kettling.
- Clear, audible dispersal orders with real exit routes and real time to leave.
- Protected access for press and legal observers.
- Documentation and oversight whenever arrests or force occur.
- Tiered response requirements—guardrails to ensure police responses to demonstrations are proportionate to what is actually happening on the ground.
This work exists because people made themselves heard in 2020—and because communities continue to push for protest spaces that are safer, clearer, and grounded in rights. We believe that by lifting up community experience, we can help make real accountability visible.
Protest Testimony Project is not an emergency service and cannot provide legal advice.
If you’re in immediate danger, call emergency services.
Who We Are
The Protest Testimony Project is led by a community of organizers, educators, researchers, attorneys, and directly impacted New Yorkers who came together through the 2020 protests and the legal and community work that followed. Our core team includes Obi Afriyie, Brett Stoudt and the Public Science Project, Tracia Bañuelos-Rovaris, Salih Israil, Andrés Borodowski, Raven Robinson. We work in collaboration with legal partners from the settlements collaborative review team, including the New York Civil Liberties Union, the Legal Aid Society, the Office of the New York Attorney General, the Aboushi Law Firm, Cohen & Green, Davis Wright Tremaine, the National Press Photographer's Association, and Wylie Stecklow. What connects us is not institutional affiliation, but a shared commitment to community knowledge, protest safety, and protecting the right to dissent. We are building tools, education, and shared understanding rooted in lived experience—so that New Yorkers can move together with clarity, care, and collective power.
Ready to jump in?
Join a workshop, read the quick explainer, or send in what you saw. When the public knows the rules—and when we collect what’s happening in real time—we make it harder for harm to hide and easier for change to stick.
Contact Us Today
