Comedian Eric Andre certainly isn’t in a laughing mood … taking an entire county to court after allegedly getting racially profiled at an airport last year.
According to the docs, obtained by TMZ, Eric and fellow comedian Clayton English are suing Clayton County, its police chief, and several individual officers … claiming they both were singled out — at separate times — at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport while boarding their flights.
Eric says he was stopped in the jet bridge — that narrow tunnel that connects a gate to the plane itself — long after he went through his ticket check and TSA screenings.
Andre and Clayton claim the “target selections are unsupported by any legitimate cause or suspicion. There are no written policies or procedures governing the jet bridge program.”
4/21/21
BACKGRID
As we previously reported, Eric said he did not consent to the search and says he did not see any other Black passengers boarding with his group in the priority line. He believes the incident was a classic case of racial profiling in the so-called war on drugs.
Clayton County PD responded at the time, calling it a “consensual encounter” … and saying Eric volunteered his travel plans and also offered officers the chance to search his luggage, but they did not.
Eric was quick to respond to Clayton County PD’s statement, saying, “I did NOT volunteer to a search and I did not volunteer to talk. You guys flashed your badge and detained me with no probable cause except for racism. This is JIM CROW RACISM.”
Eric and Clayton say the numbers don’t lie and insist that people of color are disproportionately subjected to these kinds of screenings, adding the odds of it randomly occurring this way are “significantly less than one in one hundred trillion.”
They are seeking damages for what they insist was a violation of their constitutional rights and a declaration that the screening program is unconstitutional.