Overview
- A settlement announced Tuesday between Eric André, Clayton English and Clayton County resolves a federal suit and permanently ends the county’s specialized airport interdiction program at Hartsfield-Jackson.
- Under the deal, officers assigned to the airport must wear body-worn cameras and complete training on constitutional limits for airport encounters, and the county board authorized a $30,000 payment to be split between the two plaintiffs.
- The lawsuit, filed in October 2022, alleged the comedians were racially profiled and coercively stopped on jet bridges by Clayton County officers who questioned them about drugs while other passengers watched.
- Court records cited in the case show 402 jet-bridge stops from Aug. 30, 2020, to April 30, 2021, with race recorded for 378 stops (56% Black and 68% people of color), only three reported drug seizures, and more than $1 million seized from 25 passengers.
- The Eleventh Circuit’s August 2025 ruling that the plaintiffs plausibly alleged unreasonable searches and seizures helped revive key Fourth Amendment claims, but the settlement includes no admission of fault and leaves unclear whether there were any additional payouts or officer discipline.