CNN
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Law enforcement officials stopped Eric André as he boarded a flight from Atlanta to Los Angeles in April 2021 and, a couple of months earlier, the identical factor occurred to a different Black comic in the identical place, a lawsuit alleges.
André and fellow comic Clayton English filed the lawsuit claiming the stops had been the results of racial profiling.
“Law enforcement officials got here out of nowhere in like, virtually like an ambush model and began, singled me out. I used to be the one individual of colour on the jet bridge on the time,” André stated in a information convention Tuesday.
“They singled me out. They requested me if I used to be promoting medicine, transporting medicine, what sort of medicine I’ve on me,” he stated.
A lawsuit filed Tuesday by André and English alleges that this cease was a part of an anti-drug trafficking program carried out by the Clayton County Police Division in Hartsfield-Jackson Worldwide Airport that unfairly targets Black fliers.
“It was clearly racial profiling. The expertise was humiliating and dehumanizing, degrading, I had all the opposite passengers squeezing by me on this claustrophobic jet bridge gawking at me like I used to be a perpetrator,” André stated.
Police stopped English on a flight, additionally to Los Angeles, in October 2020.
CNN has reached out to each the police division and the Atlanta Division of Aviation for remark.
“I used to be virtually on the airplane when, within the jet bridge two officers popped out, confirmed their badges and began asking questions whether or not I had unlawful medicine like cocaine, and I really feel cornered in a jet bridge and I felt the necessity to comply,” English stated within the information convention.
After the incident involving André, Clayton County police denied any wrongdoing, CNN affiliate WSB-TV reported.
The station revealed this assertion launched then by the police:
“On April 21, 2021, the Clayton County Police Division made a consensual encounter with a male traveler, later recognized as Eric Andre, as he was getting ready to fly to California from the Atlanta Airport. Mr. Andre selected to talk with investigators through the preliminary encounter. Throughout the encounter, Mr. Andre voluntarily supplied the investigators data as to his journey plans.
“Mr. Andre additionally voluntarily consented to a search of his baggage however the investigators selected not to take action. Investigators recognized that there was no cause to proceed a dialog and subsequently terminated the encounter. Mr. Andre boarded the airplane with out being detained and continued on his travels. The Drug Enforcement Administration and the Atlanta Police Division didn’t help on this consensual encounter.”
The lawsuit claims that the Clayton County Police Division describes the “jet bridge interdiction program” as “consensual encounters” carried out at “random,” however argues that in a post-9/11 flying ambiance, encounters with legislation enforcement in airports are unlikely to be seen as something however required.
The 2 title a number of members of the Clayton County Police Division of their lawsuit and allege that the division carries out these stops and searches in a manner that targets Black passengers. The submitting cites Clayton County Police Division information displaying 56% of passengers (or 378 people whose races are listed) stopped on this method are Black.
“The Clayton County Police Division, alongside, generally, with the county district legal professional’s workplace has been conducting interdiction of passengers on jet bridges as they’re getting on their airplanes to ask them about whether or not they have medicine on them,” Barry Friedman, an legal professional for the plaintiffs, stated within the information convention.
“It’s not a really profitable interdiction program,” Friedman stated. Clayton County Police Division information present that out of 402 jet bridge stops from August 2020 to April 2021, solely three seizures had been made, in line with the lawsuit,.
“They’ve give you little or no medicine, however they’ve taken a whole lot of money off of passengers,” Friedman stated. The lawsuit submitting calls the jet bridge program “financially profitable.”
“Over the 8-month interval in query, this system seized $1,036,890.35 in money and cash orders by way of 25 civil asset forfeitures,” the submitting reads.
Civil asset forfeiture permits legislation enforcement to grab property they allege is related to against the law. Organizations just like the ACLU have criticized it as a authorized manner for police to steal from civilians, as acquiring one’s property after it’s been seized is notoriously troublesome.
“But, of the 25 passengers who had money seized, 24 had been allowed to proceed on their travels, usually on the identical flight, and solely two had been ever charged with any associated crime.”
“The Clayton County Police Division has described this program as a drug interdiction program. For what we’re capable of see by merely trying on the open information data that we’ve obtained, it appears to be a distinctly unsuccessful drug interdiction program, if that’s what it’s,” Richard Deane, one other member of the plaintiff’s authorized group, stated within the information convention.
“What seems to be occurring is that that is organized largely with a view to seize cash from folks, on the hope that they’re not going to thereafter make the declare for these funds,” he stated.
André known as the expertise “traumatizing.”
“When two cops cease you, you don’t really feel like you may have the correct to depart, particularly once they begin interrogating you about medicine. The entire expertise was traumatizing. I felt belittled,” he stated. “I wish to use my assets and my platform to convey nationwide consideration to this incident in order that it stops.”
