The Clayton County, Georgia, Police Department has ended an interdiction program at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in which officers targeted hundreds of travelers for encounters without reasonable suspicion.
The program was the focus of a federal lawsuit filed in October 2022 by entertainers Eric André and Clayton English. It alleged that both men were unlawfully profiled and stopped in nearly identical incidents several months apart as part of Clayton County police’s “Airport Interdiction Unit.”
As part of the settlement, the county agreed to require all Clayton County Police Department officers assigned to the airport to wear body-worn cameras and to receive training on the constitutional limits governing police encounters in airports, including the standards articulated by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in its 2025 decision in this case.
In August 2025, the plaintiffs won an important appellate victory when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that the complaint plausibly alleged violations of the Fourth Amendment, allowing the case to proceed. The appeal drew broad bipartisan support through amicus briefs filed by actors and entertainers including Tyler Perry, Jamie Foxx, Taraji P. Henson, Sterling K. Brown, and Jean Elie; current and former law enforcement officials; the Institute for Justice; the Cato Institute; and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
The Policing Project at NYU School of Law and lead counsel Jones Day announced the settlement. Canfield Law LLC and Krevolin & Horst LLC served as co-counsel.
