People
ATLANTA — Alleging he was racially profiled when Clayton County officers questioned him at Atlanta’s airport last year, comedian Eric Andre is suing the county, its police chief and several people involved in the police department’s “jet bridge interdiction program.”
The complaint, filed Tuesday in federal court, alleges the 39-year-old writer and actor was singled out and questioned on his way home to Los Angeles on April 21, 2021, as white passengers were allowed to take their seats aboard the plane.
Clayton County police last year called the incident a “consensual encounter” and said Andre, who is Black, was not targeted because of his race. Andre said the officers who stopped him were white. Nearly three-quarters of Clayton County’s residents are Black, and the department is led by Chief Kevin Roberts, who is Black. A spokesperson for the Clayton County Police Department declined to comment.
The comedian said he was boarding a flight when he was approached by two officers who asked if he was transporting anything illegal in his luggage.
Andre’s attorneys allege a pattern of racially motivated airport searches they say are neither consensual nor random.
Andre is joined in the lawsuit by Clayton English, a fellow comedian living in Atlanta who says he was searched in October 2020.
“I felt cornered in that jet bridge and I felt the need to comply,” English told reporters. “I felt completely powerless. I felt violated.”
Andre called the incident “humiliating and dehumanizing.”
Tuesday’s lawsuit was filed in conjunction with the the Policing Project at New York University’s School of Law and pro bono counsel from the law firms Jones Day and Lawrence & Bundy. It alleges the comedians’ Fourth and 14th Amendment rights were violated.
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Geena Davis, 66, told People she looked back at the fight she and Bill Murray had on the set of 1990′s “Quick Change” — an incident which, prior to her new memoir, “Dying of Politeness: A Memoir,” Davis had “never spoken about … publicly.”
“There were easily more than 300 people there — and Murray was still screaming at me, for all to see and hear,” Davis said of the ordeal, which followed their less-than-professional first meeting in a hotel suite.
Davis recalled that Murray, 72, wanted to use a massage device on her despite her protestations. Murray “wouldn’t relent,” she said.
“I realized with profound sadness that I didn’t yet have the ability to withstand this onslaught — or to simply walk out,” wrote Davis, noting that the actor ultimately “placed the thing on my back for a total of about two seconds.”
Other notoriously unpleasant on-set experiences allegedly involving Murray include earlier this year when production on “Being Mortal” was suspended due to what the actor described as “a difference of opinion with a woman I’m working with.
“I did something I thought was funny, and it wasn’t taken that way,” he said.
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Kim Kardashian reportedly took added safety precautions following a series of online outbursts by ex Kanye West.
She enlisted extra security for their children after West posted the name of their school on Instagram amid an attempt for them to go to his new Donda Academy, TMZ reported Monday.
Kardashian, who filed for divorce from West last year, has four children with him who range in age from 3 to 9 years old.
West isn’t considered a safety threat, but the school hired the extra security in case a stranger shows up. Kardashian is reportedly covering the cost.
The latest development follows a recent streak of controversial behavior by West, who has also been accused of sharing antisemitic posts online.
Kardashian has pushed back on West’s desire for their kids to attend the Donda Academy, a private Christian school he recently founded, because it isn’t accredited.
From combined wire services
