A federal appeals court has revived part of a lawsuit by comedian-actors Eric André and Clayton English alleging Clayton County police officers unlawfully stopped and searched them while they boarded flights at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit said Friday that André and English sufficiently alleged the county violated their constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. However, the court found the entertainers failed to show they were discriminated against because they are Black.
The decision allows André and English to proceed with some of their case, which was thrown out by a federal judge in Atlanta in September 2023.
“We look forward to returning to the trial court to learn even more about the Clayton County Police Department’s unconstitutional jet bridge stop program,” said Barry Friedman, a lawyer for André and English.
Representatives for the county did not immediately respond to questions about the case.
A lawyer for the county argued in March that its police officers had voluntary and consensual interactions with André and English, who said they were separately stopped inside jet bridges while boarding Delta flights from Atlanta to Los Angeles in April 2021 and October 2020, respectively.
The county argued that André and English were never seized because they could have pushed past the police officers, who had taken their identification and boarding passes, and gotten on their flights without those items.
“Common sense and the Supreme Court both refute this theory,” the appeals court said in its decision. “Plaintiffs’ paths were blocked by officers, the officers held onto plaintiffs’ IDs and boarding passes during questioning, and the officers did not inform plaintiffs of the voluntary nature of the questioning or that plaintiffs were free to leave until after officers finished their questioning.”
André and English were cleared to board their flights after several minutes, case records show. English said the officers also searched his carry-on luggage.
Credit: Rosie Manins
Credit: Rosie Manins
The entertainers claimed the plain-clothed officers were targeting Black passengers as part of a drug interdiction program at the airport through which more than $1 million in cash was seized. They said 56% of passengers stopped by Clayton officers inside jet bridges between September 2020 and April 2021 were Black.
Several Black celebrities, including Tyler Perry, publicly supported André and English in their case and urged the appeals court to revive it.
The county said its involvement in the program, which comprised random searches, ended in June 2024.
In its decision, the 11th Circuit said the county does not dispute André and English’s allegation that there was no basis to suspect they were carrying drugs.
But the court said André and English hadn’t done enough to show the officers selected them with a discriminatory purpose.
“Although plaintiffs alleged that André did not see any other black passengers in his boarding group when the individual defendants stopped him, plaintiffs do not plausibly allege that any of the officers who stopped English or André did so because English and André are black,” the court wrote.
The court held that the officers who stopped André and English cannot individually be held liable, allowing only claims against the county to proceed.
Lawyers for André and English said the entertainers were among 402 passengers stopped by Clayton police officers on jet bridges at the airport during an eight-month period. Just over half those passengers were Black, though Black passengers make up around 8% of the airport’s domestic travelers, the lawyers said.
“The odds of that racial breakdown occurring randomly is less than one in one hundred trillion,” they said Monday.
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