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 on the jet bridge 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 on the litigation.
