This story is so wrong and ridiculous, it’s hard to believe it’s true.
Daniele Watts took to Facebook on Thursday to express her outrage at being handcuffed and detained by police, who assumed she was a prostitute when they saw the African American actress giving her white boyfriend affection in public, according to Watts.
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“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,” Watts explained in her lengthy Facebook post, which detailed the incident.
Because Watts refused to produce identification proving who she was, she was handcuffed and put in the back of a police car until officers could verify her identity. Once they did, she was quickly released.
Watts, who is most known for her role in Django Unchained, even has pictures to back up her claim. In one image, she can be seen crying up against a police car in handcuffs.
Watts’s boyfriend, chef Brian James Lucas, also took to Facebook to back up his wife’s claims. He has pictures of the cuts on her wrists, which he explains were caused by the handcuffs and the police officer’s rough handling.
Lucas later updated his Facebook page to say that Good Morning America would possibly be filming a segment with the couple regarding the incident. CNN is also planning to interview the two.
Watts’s experience with police closely follows another detainment in which California police officers held African American television producer Charles Belk on his way to a pre-Emmy Awards party. Belk said he was treated unfairly because he fit a certain description.
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Meanwhile, an LAPD public information officer said they didn’t have a record of the incident with Watts and Lucas because neither were arrested or brought to the station for questioning, according to Variety.
We’re going to go ahead and say those pictures didn’t just come out of nowhere, so the Los Angeles Police Department better get its investigation together and quick.
UPDATE Sept. 15, 2014: If new info gathered by TMZ is true, the actions taken by the LAPD may not have been so ridiculous — or racist — as Watts would have us believe. According to leaked police audio, witnesses called cops after seeing Watts and Lucas in a car, and Watts then went on a vicious rant accusing cops of being racist. Listen to the audio:
UPDATE Sept. 17, 2014: Photos posted by TMZ purport to show Watts having sex with her boyfriend in a car. According to office workers who claim to have seen the whole thing and supplied the pics, Watts was grinding on Lucas, who then began “bongoing” her breasts. The couple reportedly refused to stop after a worker went down and told them everyone could see what they were doing — and at that point the police were called.
In audio obtained by Madame Noir, Lucas can be heard telling cops that Watts is highly sensitive to being stopped because she is black.
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