In response to police’s “program of racial profiling and coercive stops” at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Eric André has filed a lawsuit against Clayton County.
As was previously mentioned, André revealed what he claimed to be a case of racial profiling at the Georgia airport last year, eventually going on Jimmy Kimmel Live to discuss the harassment. According to André, the Clayton County police’s statement regarding the incident was “full of misinformation,” including their claim that it was a “consensual encounter.”
At one point during the resulting interrogation, André said, police asked him if he was “transporting crystal meth to Los Angeles.”
The Policing Project at NYU School of Law stated on Tuesday that comedians André and Clayton English, who is alleged to have been targeted in a similar fashion while visiting Los Angeles in 2020, have filed a complaint asserting that these police methods are unconstitutional.
The program being used by the Clayton County Police Department and investigators from the Clayton County District Attorney’s Office doesn’t hold up to scrutiny of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment variety, according to the legal team behind the lawsuit, which includes pro bono counsel from Jones Day and Lawrence & Bundy.