by Robin Kemp
UPDATE 3:42 p.m. April 22: CCPD issues statement adding details of encounter.
The Clayton County Police Department has issued a statement denying comedian/actor/writer Eric André‘s claim that he was racially profiled and searched for drugs at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport Wednesday.
A further statement issued April 22 gave more details of the encounter and stressed the department’s non-discrimination policy:
The original press release read, “On April 21, 2021, the Clayton County Police Department made a consensual encounter with a male traveler, later identified as Eric Andre, as he was preparing to fly to California from the Atlanta Airport,” CCPD said in a press release. “Mr. Andre chose to speak with investigators during the initial encounter. During the encounter, Mr. Andre voluntarily provided the investigators information as to his travel plans. Mr. Andre also voluntarily consented to a search of his luggage but the investigators chose not to do so. Investigators identified that there was no reason to continue a conversation and therefore terminated the encounter. Mr. Andre boarded the plane without being detained and continued on his travels. The Drug Enforcement Administration and the Atlanta Police Department did not assist in this consensual encounter.”
At 2:54 p.m. on Twitter, André said that he had been at Gate T3 when he was approached by a couple of plainclothes officers: “@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 [if] they could search me for drugs. I told them no. Be careful.”
André posted a series of tweets about the incident, looping in Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and President Joe Biden, asking for “any Atlanta lawyer” to contact him, and wondering whether the Drug Enforcement Administration was involved:
At that moment, I was the only POC on line. @KeishaBottoms I know this isn’t the PD you want representing in your airports. #racism #racialprofiling #jimcrow #racistwarondrugs @delta
— Eric Andre (@ericandre) April 21, 2021
If anyone is at Atlanta airport gate T3 @delta let me know the officers names so I can file a complaint.
— Eric Andre (@ericandre) April 21, 2021
Hearing it might be @DEAHQ at gate T3 racially profiling passengers and not the @Atlanta_Police does anyone have answers? @Delta @POTUS @KeishaBottoms
— Eric Andre (@ericandre) April 21, 2021
— Eric Andre (@ericandre) April 21, 2021
I’m hearing it’s the @DEAHQ and not @Atlanta_Police please give me answers DEA!
— Eric Andre (@ericandre) April 21, 2021
DEA – Narco Polo https://t.co/Q6M8keNEay
— Eric Andre (@ericandre) April 21, 2021
Andre then posted a series of tweets on disgraced former President Richard Nixon’s prescription drug abuse and his creation of the DEA to go after hippies and Blacks:
— Eric Andre (@ericandre) April 21, 2021
So glad to hear Atlanta PD doesn’t operate like this, but who was the agency that interrogated me and why does ATL allow an agency with those kinds of random search rules to operate in one of the busiest airports in the world? @DEAHQ @KeishaBottoms
— Eric Andre (@ericandre) April 21, 2021
In reality, Nixon saw the DEA as a jurisdiction-free police force that would indirectly target blacks saying, “You have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this all while not appearing to.” (Baum, p. 13)
— Eric Andre (@ericandre) April 21, 2021
An assistant to Egil Krogh, a member of Nixon’s administration imprisoned in the Watergate scandal, explained, “If we hyped the drug problem into a national crisis, we knew that Congress would give us anything we asked for.” (Epstein, p. 140)
— Eric Andre (@ericandre) April 21, 2021
While president, Nixon would get drunk and pop pills from his private stash. He never had himself arrested.
— Eric Andre (@ericandre) April 21, 2021
Nixon’s statistical deceit regarding heroin addict numbers is explained in Agency of Fear: Opiates and Political Power in America. (pp. 174-177) When Nixon later wanted to show his War on Drugs was working the addict population was magically sliced by 25%.
— Eric Andre (@ericandre) April 21, 2021
The Nixon quotes are from Dan Baum’s Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure. Baum took the “blacks” quote from the diary of Nixon’s Chief of Staff, H.R. Haldeman.
— Eric Andre (@ericandre) April 21, 2021
The Clayton Crescent has asked André’s publicist for further clarification about the incident but has not yet heard back.
