CLAYTON COUNTY, Ga — Two comedians filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against Clayton County for its police’s “racial profiling and coercive stops” during stops at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), according to a news release.

The lawsuit, brought on by Eric André and Clayton English, challenges the constitutionality of these stops under the Fourth and 14th Amendments.

On Oct. 30, 2020, English, a stand-up comedian and actor based in Atlanta, was randomly searched when traveling from Atlanta to Los Angeles, according to a news release.

Then on April 21, 2021, André was traveling from Atlanta to Los Angeles. As he walked through the jet bridge to board the plane, two Clayton County police officers intercepted him and immediately asked if he was carrying illegal drugs, according to a news release. After about five minutes of questioning and reviewing André's ticket and ID, the officers allowed him to board his flight.

“I was blocked in a jet bridge by two police officers who interrogated me about drugs,” said André. “I didn’t see any other Black people boarding at the time. It’s hard to believe I was selected at ‘random’ for questioning. It was a humiliating and degrading experience.”

According to the release, in the eight months before André's stop, 56% of the hundreds of passengers stopped by CCPD were recorded as Black. But overall, only 8% of airline passengers in the U.S. are Black.

“These are cases of flying while Black, plain and simple,” said Barry Friedman, co-founder of the Policing Project at NYU School of Law and the Jacob D. Fuchsberg Professor of Law. “Every day in America, people of color are unjustly stopped on the pretense that these encounters are consensual. It is humiliating, it is deeply inappropriate, it is unconstitutional, and it must stop.”

The comedian’s representative asked that the airport stop program be shut down immediately.

“No matter where you’ve come from or where you’re going, everyone has the right to be free of discrimination and harassment by Clayton County law enforcement,” Allegra Lawrence-Hardy, co-founder, of Lawrence & Bundy, said in a release. “We urge the court to shut down CCPD’s airport stop program immediately.”

André and English are asking the federal court to declare the CCPD’s jet bridge stop program at the Atlanta airport unconstitutional. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

André is best known as the creator, host, and co-writer of the Adult Swim comedy series “The Eric André Show,” while English is the winner of 2015′s “Last Comic Standing” TV show.

The Policing Project at NYU School of Law and pro bono counsel from the law firms of Jones Day and Lawrence & Bundy represent André and English, according to the news release.

Clayton County police deny any wrongdoing in this case.

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