LAPD handcuff, detain Django Unchained actress Daniele Watts after mistaking her for prostitute
Daniele Watts, the actress best-known for her role in the 2012 Quentin Tarentino-directed hit Django Unchained, is accusing the LAPD of racism.
The reason? Police handcuffed and detained her after thinking she was a prostitute “because she was kissing her white partner in his car.”
Watts, who played CoCo in the film, described the incident on her Facebook page:
Today I was handcuffed and detained by 2 police officers from the Studio City Police Department after refusing to agree that I had done something wrong by showing affection, fully clothed, in a public place.
When the officer arrived, I was standing on the sidewalk by a tree. I was talking to my father on my cell phone. I knew that I had done nothing wrong, that I wasn’t harming anyone, so I walked away.
A few minutes later, I was still talking to my dad when 2 different police officers accosted me and forced me into handcuffs.
As I was sitting in the back of the police car, I remembered the countless times my father came home frustrated or humiliated by the cops when he had done nothing wrong. I felt his shame, his anger, and my own feelings of frustration for existing in a world where I have allowed myself to believe that “authority figures” could control my BEING… my ability to BE!!!!!!!
The incident comes just a month after police in Beverly Hills were criticized for detaining film producer Charles Belk six hours because they believed he was a bank robber.
Belk, who is also black, was eventually released without comment.
Watts’ boyfriend, Brian Lucas, said the couple had been making out in his car when police approached and asked them to stop–which they did, though, as Lucas noted, “making out is not illegal.”
The police department claims it was responding to a call of indecent exposure. But both Watts and Lucas were fully clothed when police arrived.
The department also says it has no record of the event, since no arrest was made.
