Comedians Eric Andre and Clayton English are suing the police department and the district attorney's office in Clayton County, Georgia, over a program they believe violates the constitutional rights of airline passengers.

The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in federal court in Atlanta and accuses the police program of racial profiling and coercive searches. Clayton County is part of the Atlanta metropolitan area and has a population of about 300,000.

Both Andre and Clayton allege they were racially profiled and illegally stopped by Clayton County police at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

"It was demoralizing, dehumanizing, racist, and pathetic," said Andre, an actor known for his sketch comedy show "The Eric Andre Show."

On occasions nearly six months apart, the men, who are both Black, allege that plain-clothes-dressed officers singled them out because of their race and questioned them about drugs.

In 2021, Andre posted on Twitter about an incident with police.

The Clayton County police department later responded to Andre, calling the encounter "consensual" and saying the searches were "random."

The lawsuit claims that the searches "rely on coercion, and targets are selected disproportionately based on their race."

"I felt completely powerless, I felt violated, I felt cornered, I felt like I couldn't ... continue to get on the plane — I felt like I had to comply if I wanted everything to go smoothly," English said Tuesday at a news conference with Andre and their attorneys.

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Eric Andre and Clayton English at a press conference in Atlanta.

According to the lawsuit, English was stopped while flying from his home in Atlanta to Los Angeles on Oct. 30, 2020. Andre was flying from Charleston, South Carolina, where he was shooting HBO's "The Righteous Gemstones" when he was stopped during a layover in Atlanta.

The lawsuit noted that the stated purpose of the police program is to fight drug trafficking but drugs are rarely found, criminal charges are seldom filed, and seized cash provides a financial windfall for the police department.

Clayton County police officers and investigators from the county district attorney's office selectively stop passengers in the narrow jet bridges used to access planes, the lawsuit reads. The officers take the passengers' boarding passes and identification and interrogate them, sometimes searching their bags, before they board their flights, the lawyers say in the lawsuit.

From Aug. 30, 2020, to April 30, 2021, the Clayton County police department conducted 402 jet bridge stops, listing the passenger's race in 378 of the stops, the lawsuit reads, citing department records. Of those 378 passengers, 211 were Black, or 56%, and people of color accounted for 258 total stops, or 68%, the lawsuit reads.

NYU School of Law Policing Project co-founder Barry Friedman, who is one of the lawsuit's lawyers, encouraged those who had similar experiences to reach out.

Andre and Clayton are seeking a jury trial and for the Clayton County police jet bridge interdiction program to be deemed unconstitutional.

Lawsuit