Comedians Eric André and Clayton English have reached a settlement with Clayton County, Georgia, to stop them from interdicting passengers on Atlanta airport jet bridges, taking their identification and boarding passes, questioning them about drugs and searching their bags. During an eight-month period,
- officers made 402 jetbridge stops
- found a total of 36 grams of drugs and six prescription pills
- but seized more than $1 million in cash and money orders
- only two people were charged, passengers went on their way but police kept the money
The program was much more successful at finding money than drugs!
The Government Says People Voluntarily Let Themselves Get Searched For Drugs While Boarding
Clayton English was flying from Atlanta to Los Angeles for work on October 30, 2020. He had cleared TSA, presented his boarding pass to the gate agent and entered the jetbridge heading to his aircraft.
According to the lawsuit, two plainclothes police officers flashed their badges, questioned him about drugs and instructed him to stand off to the side. The officers stood on either side of him, took his identification and boarding pass, continued questioning him and searched his carry-on.
English said he acquiesced because he did not believe he had a choice. He was concerned that resisting—or saying something an officer considered “out of line” would keep him from boarding.
Eric André had a similar encounter on April 21, 2021. He had finished filming HBO’s The Righteous Gemstones and was traveling from Charleston to Los Angeles via Atlanta. He was the only Black passenger in his boarding group. Officers stood in his path, flashd their badges and began asking whether he had cocaine, meth, or unprescribed medication and interrogated him about his travel plans. Clayton County said this was all “voluntary.”
@Atlanta_Police “I was just racially profiled by two plain clothes Atlanta PD police in @Delta terminal T3 at the Atlanta airport. They stopped me on the way down the bridge to the plane for a “random” search and asked they could search me for drugs. I told them no. Be careful.
— Eric Andre (@ericandre) April 21, 2021
He discussed the stop the next night on Jimmy Kimmel Live!:
Footage from another Clayton County jet-bridge encounter later surfaced. Actor Jean Elie videoed officers searching his bags during a similar stop. Elie panned toward the other passengers and said, “See all those white folks? And I’m the random search.”
Despite what the government says, this doesn’t appear consensual.
The Lawsuit Was Dismissed, Then Revived
André and English sued Clayton County, its police chief, individual officers and an investigator in October 2022. They alleged unreasonable seizures, an unreasonable search of English’s luggage, racial discrimination in violation of the Equal Protection Clause and a violation of federal civil rights law. They sought damages and a declaration that the jetbridge program was unconstitutional.
In September 2023, Judge Cohen dismissed the entire case. He concluded that the encounters were voluntary rather than Fourth Amendment seizures, that English consented to the search of his luggage and that the complaint did not adequately allege intentional racial discrimination. The individual officers also received qualified immunity.
André and English appealed. Their case attracted Tyler Perry, Jamie Foxx, Taraji P. Henson, Sterling K. Brown and Jean Elie, along with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Cato Institute, Institute for Justice, and ACLU of Georgia as supporters.
A unanimous Eleventh Circuit panel reinstated the Fourth Amendment claims against Clayton County last year.
The appeals court focused on:
- Officers waited until passengers had entered a narrow and confined jet bridge.
- The passengers had already presented their boarding passes and been cleared to board.
- Officers displayed badges and obstructed their paths.
- They took and retained identification and boarding passes while questioning them.
- Passengers had been conditioned by post-9/11 airport security to comply with authority.
- Refusing created an obvious fear of being detained or missing the flight.
Under those alleged circumstances, the court said André and English plausibly claimed that a reasonable passenger would not feel free to end the encounter and continue boarding and that English’s supposed consent to search his luggage was coerced. An officer had his ticket and identification, had removed him from the flow of passengers and did not tell him he could refuse.
However, the individual officers retained qualified immunity because the law was not sufficiently “clearly established” at the time that it was illegal to single out passengers based on race, obstruct their boarding, call it voluntary and keep their money.
By the way, of 402 documented stops, officers recorded race for 378 passengers. Of those, 56%—were Black and 68% were people of color. Only ~ 8% of U.S. domestic airline passengers are Black.
Why These Searches Are Bad
Searches are supposed to require particularized suspicion (and traveling while Black doesn’t count). These searches are unrelated to airline safety (and all passengers involved have already been screened). They are supposedly looking for drugs, they only find cash, but they keep looking because they’re good at finding cash.
Here’s John Oliver’s explanation of civil asset forfeiture:
Don’t forget that “commissions” or kick-backs were often paid to check-in agents and airport staff as part of the cash theft scheme (which operated for years unchallenged by Atlanta’s hometown airline).
Follow the money and…Keep Climbing.
I fail to see how discriminating based on race is not, “clearly established.” This is why qualified immunity MUST be abolished. There are far too many opportunities for clear civil rights violations to slip through the cracks. There is currently a case winding its way through probably certiori that will ask whether officers should receive qualified immunity for obvious violations of basic constitutional rights. In other words, do obvious violations that the average student in 12th grade US Government class would know were violations? I’m hoping it will make to to SCOTUS as there is a split on the issue in at least one federal circuit. Clarence Thomas, for one, has been chomping at the bit for years to revisit this issue.
The three sentences that all police officers fear:
“Am I under arrest?”
“No, I do not consent to a search.”
“At this time, I choose not to answer any of your questions.”
These questions and statements put all of the pressure on the officer(s). They must now have probable cause to detain you for even one more second.
This isn’t Nazi Germany last I checked. This type of fishing expedition and harassment is absolutely despicable. Oh and don’t get caught traveling the interstate with $5-$10k worth of cash, the police seize it and you won’t get it back. I really don’t understand the laws that allow them to seize your cash, but it is a huge windfall for LEO in a lot of states under the guise of stopping drug money. There are hundreds of cases of people being pulled over, robbed by the police and then let go on the spot… Good luck getting your belongings back. Unbelievable!
Glad to hear that the court reinstated this case ruling that reasonable passengers in a confined jet bridge would not feel free to leave while officers held their IDs and tickets; and, that they ultimately reached a settlement with the county that puts an end to these jet-bridge interdiction stops.
Gary, speaking of “traveling while Black doesn’t count,” did you know that Eric André is actually ‘Blewish’… (his own description), as his mother is Ashkenazi Jewish (from NYC) and his father is Haitian; he grew up in Boca Raton, FL. His comedy is, let’s say, a bit WILD.
Now the plaintiffs need to go after these policemen personally with a civil suit.
Searches are allowed under certain situations. If a drug sniffing dog indicated an alert the search would have likely been legal because of probable cause. But generally you can’t just search someone without their permission.
@George Nathan Romey — Oh, so you’re an “ambulance chaser” now, too? (Your words, from prior posts.) At least you didn’t start with “I’m not a lawyer, but…” (that’s @This comes to mind’s go-to). Tell us about Wawa, again.
@ThatOtherOtherGuy
That all sounds good in theory, but they manufacture “probable cause” in a nano second. Good luck with that unless you have about 20 people recording at a close distance. They might use the old “we smell cannabis” or “you are slurring your words” or any number of other BS excuses for putting you in cuffs and forcefully searching your body and belongings. Then they claim “stop resisting” in order to put a knee on your chest. Not all LEO are like this to be certain and they mostly are stand up, but I have personally encountered a few bad apples in my days and watched enough interaction videos to see how the bad ones operate with impunity.
These jerks stopped me a few months ago, and I wasn’t copperative. They let me board after asking several stupid questions, like “where are you going?” (Um, wherever this plane is going? Maybe check the departure screen?)
@gene. If they do not know we’re the plane is going then they are over paid
@Gene — Well done! Glad you didn’t let their sh*t slide.
I’m against racial profiling and there was certainly that going on here. But I do think the African-American flying population percentage at ATL is more than the 8% national figure you used. Possibly 2x or 3x that amount. (although I couldn’t find any official demographics of race for just ATL airport)
Never forget. The police main job is social control. They are lap pitbulls for the Epstein class. That’s who they serve and protect.
The cops involved are racist in my opinion.
“The police main job is social control.”
And here all this time I thought, like all government entities, their role is to protect us.
When the government is involved, the jokes write themselves.
Please, please SCOTUS rule against this whole type of BS. No civil forfeiture. No bullying to get permission to search.
@Mike P — Our sovereign citizen has arrived! You really are an anarchist aren’t you? No, the answer isn’t to abolish the government; it’s to stop misusing law enforcement to knowingly violating people’s 4th and 5th Amendment protections. Instead, you advocate for chaos. Psh.
I am a victim of this program my lawyers found out they had confidential informants tipping off passengers to the agents.
In the training guide they are told to “build a case and reason is detaining currency” glad my lawyers are about to expose this.