“I felt completely powerless. I felt violated. “I felt cornered.”
Those were the words comedian Clayton English shared about his experience when plainclothes officers searched his bag at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in October 2020.
They also asked if he had any cocaine or meth on him.
Now, thanks to a lawsuit filed by English and fellow comedian Eric André, who posted about a similar humiliating experience at the airport on social media, the Clayton County Police Department has ended the jet bridge program. Under the program, officers stopped, questioned, and sometimes searched travelers between the gate and their airplane.
Tuesday, attorneys representing the two comedians confirmed that CCPD had settled a federal lawsuit claiming the program was discriminatory toward Black travelers.
Although the stated purpose of the program was to intercept passengers transporting illegal drugs through the airport, the lawsuit asserted that in a six-month period, more than half of people stopped were Black. Nationwide less than 10% of airline passengers are Black.
Under the new agreement, Clayton County police officers assigned to the airport will now be required to wear body-worn cameras and complete training on the constitutional limitations governing police encounters in airports. Earlier this month, the county’s Board of Commissioners also approved a $30,000 payment to be divided between André and English.
With the help of attorneys at Jones Day and the Policing Project at NYU School of Law, the comedians sued the department in 2022.
“What happened to me was wrong, and I wasn’t willing to let it happen to other people,” English said in a statement Tuesday.
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