Black Comedians Settle Lawsuit Over Racially Targeted Jet Bridge Stops at Atlanta Airport
What to Know Comedians Eric André and Clayton English have settled their lawsuit against Clayton County over a jet bridge stop program at Atlanta’s airport, which disproportionately targeted Black passengers. In This Article The statistics behind the lawsuit, including odds researchers say are less than one in 100 trillion that the racial disparity happened by chance. What each comedian experienced when police intercepted them on the jet bridge before boarding. What Clayton County has agreed to change, including body cameras and constitutional rights training for officers. How much each comedian will receive, and what the county did and didn’t admit to. 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The lawsuit dates back to October 2022 when André and English took the Clayton County Police Department to court in a bid to shut down the 'jet bridge stop program' which involved police officers standing on a jet bridge as passengers are boarding a plane and "randomly" stopping people. On April 21, 2021, Eric was flying from Atlanta to Los Angeles when he was intercepted by two police officers who were waiting on the jet bridge. The officers questioned him for five minutes, during which time they asked if he was carrying illegal drugs, all while other passengers "gawked" at him as they squeezed past. Eric was allowed to board the flight, but he says the encounter with the police officers was a "humiliating and degrading experience". Clayton had a very similar experience as he went to board a flight to Los Angeles just six months earlier in October 2020. In an eight-month period, the Clayton County Police Department had 402 "consensual encounters," of which only two resulted in passengers being charged with drug offenses. During that same time period, however, the police department seized more than $1 million in cash and money orders based on the "slightest suspicion" that the money was connected to criminal activity. An Open Records Act request revealed that 56% of the passengers stopped during the same eight-month period were Black. Researchers from the Policing Project, which supported Eric and Clayton, claim that the odds that Black passengers were randomly selected for these stops are less than one in 100 trillion. The actors have, however, now reached an out-of-court settlement with Clayton County. The settlement includes a $15,000 payout for each of the actors. “It´s a major victory that Clayton County has confirmed that it has ended this program and is now taking steps to prevent this type of abuse from happening in the future,” André said after the settlement was announced on Tuesday. In a separate statement, English said: “What happened to me was wrong, and I wasn´t willing to let it happen to other people.” Clayton County did not make any admission of guilt or liability as part of the settlement. The county has, however, committed to putting its police officers through constitutional rights training, and will require officers on duty at Atlanta-Hartsfield to wear body cameras.