Sharpton reaches settlement with NYC over 1991 stabbing protest

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Posted: 12/9/03

NEW YORK - New York City has agreed to pay $200,000 in damages to Al Sharpton after he was stabbed nearly 13 years ago at a protest where he said police failed to protect him.
The settlement, which also covers the Democratic presidential candidate's $7,447.76 hospital bill, came as jury selection was to begin Monday in his decade-old civil case against the New York Police Department.

Sharpton claimed police were ''careless, negligent and reckless'' during the 1991 incident, said his lawyer, Sanford Rubenstein. Sharpton, a civil rights activist, was protesting what he considered lenient sentencing of white defendants in the 1989 killing of Yusuf Hawkins, a black teenager.

The city's law department on Monday defended the NYPD's actions, but said it agreed to the settlement because the city could not predict how a jury might rule.

Sharpton said he still fears large crowds as a result of the stabbing, and has a one-inch scar on his chest.

His attacker, Michael Riccardi, was convicted of first-degree assault and sentenced to the maximum of five to 15 years in prison.