Clayton English Says Black Officers Racially Profile, 'More Blue Than Black'

TMZ

Comedian Clayton English is thanking Tyler Perry for putting a brighter spotlight on his racial profiling lawsuit ... and says his run-in with airport cops has him thinking some Black cops absolutely discriminate against Black citizens.

Transcript

00:00We know what you say based on the lawsuit, but why don't you kind of explain your experience,

00:08what happened to you?

00:09I'm leaving from Atlanta to LA.

00:10This is after I've gone through TSA.

00:11This is after I've gone through the checkpoint.

00:12I've given the lady my ticket.

00:13She scanned it.

00:14I entered the jet bridge.

00:15And you know how some jet bridges kind of like wind around, and they might have a little

00:16corner or whatever?

00:17As soon as I hit the corner, there's two officers, and they stopped me.

00:18They don't stop anybody.

00:19They're like, what are you doing?

00:20And I'm like, what are you doing?

00:21And they're like, what are you doing?

00:22And I'm like, what are you doing?

00:23And they're like, what are you doing?

00:24And I'm like, what are you doing?

00:26They asked me, hey, where you traveling to?

00:32Can we search your bag?

00:33It's just a barrage of questions, real fast.

00:35It really fell, I remember it because the officers, it was a tall Asian officer and

00:42a short black officer.

00:43It was like a reverse rush hour.

00:45and that's what stuck out in my mind.

00:48No, it was like, hold on, man, it's Chris Chan.

00:52What's going on?

00:53And they just kept asking me these questions

00:55and I'm just trying to get on my flight.

00:58They searched my bag, they didn't find anything.

01:01And so I'm just really kind of left with my thoughts

01:04on like, what was that about?

01:06It didn't make sense.

01:07And so when I saw what happened to Eric Andre,

01:10I reached out to him and it turns out

01:12it was a very similar scenario.

01:13You mentioned that one of the two officers was black

01:17and the population in Atlanta is significantly black

01:21and you would think that if the police department,

01:25which has black officers.

01:26You think that the black officers

01:28would speak up on behalf of the black community?

01:30Yeah, I mean, and I'm not doubting what you're saying.

01:32I'm just, that's why it is really surprising to me.

01:36I'll put it like this.

01:37I think, you know, and I might catch black boy,

01:39but I think some black officers

01:41are more blue than they are black.

01:44So what goes with that job?

01:47You know, I think they, I think being a police officer,

01:51certain stereotypes are ingrained in that.

01:54So, and my thing is, I don't even know

01:58if it was racially profiling as far as race,

02:00but I think it was profiling people

02:02who look like they have cash on them.

02:04Are you the person who brought this to Tyler's attention?

02:07I know you've worked with him on a lot of his productions.

02:11I'm just wondering how he got on board with this.

02:13Was it just something he read

02:13or did you actually have a conversation with him?

02:15The people that are kind of handling the lawsuit for us

02:18reached out to a lot of people

02:19and he was one of the people that just jumped on early on

02:22with a lot of other people that were way bigger than me.

02:25And my whole thing was when I saw what happened to Eric,

02:28I just texted him, comedian to comedian,

02:30hey man, that same thing happened to me.

02:31So I never thought it would get, you know, to this level.

02:34But when he said he was doing something about it,

02:36I was like, oh, hell yeah.

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