Two Black Comedians Sue Police Over Search at Atlanta Airport

A man who cleared security at the Atlanta airport and gave the gate agent his boarding pass was stopped by police when he was about to board a plane.

Mr.André, who is black, said in an interview and a court complaint that he was questioned by officers about whether he was selling drugs or having drugs in his possession.

They wanted to make sure his bag was clean. The officers said no when he asked if he had to do something.

Other passengers had to squeeze past Mr.André and the police officers on the jet bridge during the interaction. He said that he was allowed onto the plane, but that he was frightened by the interaction.

Mr.André said he knew it was wrong. It was degrading and traumatizing. The passengers are like squeezing past me on the jet bridge as they look at me.

There were two encounters at the same airport in October and April of 2020.

The complaint says that Mr. English and Mr. André were unfairly targeted for drug checks. The department discriminated against Black travelers who had already been cleared by the transportation security administration, according to their lawyers.

Between August 30, 2020 and April 30, 2021, the police department ran a jet bridge interdiction program.

According to court papers, the stops resulted in the seizure of about 10 grams of drugs from one passenger, 26 grams of drugs from another, and 6 prescription pills.

The suit said that two passengers were charged with possession of drugs and pills.

There were a total of 402 stops. Half of the passengers who were stopped were black.

The police department wouldn't comment. The department denied wrongdoing when Mr.André shared his experience on social media.

This type of interaction is supported by Georgia law and the U.S. Constitution. The department said that Mr. Andre was not profiled.

The main law enforcement agency at the airport is the Atlanta Police Department. The statement said that the APD does not engage in jet-bridge stops of passengers.

The police seized $1 million from passengers from September 2020 to April 2021.

According to Richard Deane, a lawyer involved in the suit, the purpose of the stops appeared to be to seize money and that the stops were mostly based on race.

Barry Friedman, founding director of New York University's policing project and another lawyer on the case, said that the police violated the constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures and the equal protection clause.

He said at a news conference this month that he was concerned about police acting when there was no policy in place. Severe racial discrimination is what we get when there's too much discretion.

Drug interdiction programs at airports began in 1975 with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

She thinks it's a strong suit. It would be hard to describe the Fourth Amendment claims as consent searches.

Professor Colgan said civil asset forfeiture allows law enforcement to seize cash, property or vehicles based on probable cause. She said that people don't challenge forfeitures because the process to get the money back is time consuming and expensive.

Gloria J. Browne-Marshall is a visiting professor at the Harvard Kennedy School.

In 2015, Mr. English was the winner of NBC's "Last Comic Standing" competition and has since performed in clubs, colleges and festivals.

He wondered what he had done wrong and if he would be arrested on his way to the airport. He was forced to comply when the police searched his bag after taking his boarding pass.

He stated at the news conference that he felt powerless. I felt like I was being punished. I felt like I was in a corner. I felt like I couldn't go on the plane. If I wanted things to go smoothly, I had to obey.

Mr.André lives in Los Angeles but travels through the Atlanta airport often for work and has recently taken to hiring a service that brings passengers directly to the plane after they've cleared security because he's afraid of repeating his experience from last year.

He said that it wasn't just about him or what he had gone through. It is about my community. It's about black and brown people being treated like second-class citizens, being treated as if they're suspicious, and the trauma that comes with that, because they don't belong in this country.