Tyler Perry Blasts Alleged Racial Profiling at Airports, Backs Eric André's lawsuit
Tyler Perry Racial Profiling at Airports Must End ... Backs Comedians' Suit
Tyler Perry's sick of alleged racial profiling at his local airport ... blasting cops for what he sees as the disproportionate stopping of Black people after they're already past TSA.
The film and TV mogul wrote an op-ed for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Thursday ... offering his take after a couple of fellow entertainers filed a lawsuit in 2022 for allegedly getting stopped at ATL's Hartsfield-Jackson Airport.
In the piece, TP breaks down the case made by the two comedians in the lawsuit -- Eric André and Clayton English -- who say they were stopped for no reason while just a few steps away from boarding separate flights several months apart in 2021.
Perry accuses these officers of approaching Eric and Clayton because of their skin color before sharing some statistics provided by the attorney for the men, Allegra Lawrence-Hardy.
Tyler claims a majority of the passengers stopped by Clayton County police -- a whopping 56% -- are Black ... a massively disproportionate number, Tyler says, since Black people make up just 8% of domestic flyers at the airport.
Perry's calling the police out for civil asset forfeiture too ... alleging they've been seizing property -- including cash -- that they believe may have been involved in a crime, and further claiming it's a way for cops to line their department's pockets.
Tyler takes the department to task here ... saying every instance of alleged racial discrimination is an affront to collective dignity and constitutes a "broken promise."
Remember, we told you about André's alleged incident right after he claims it happened ... 'cause he came off the plane and immediately launched into the story while chatting with an L.A. photog. Clayton County denied Eric's version of events, calling it a "consensual encounter."
We've reached out to Clayton County Police ... so far, no word back.