Eric André and Clayton English reach landmark settlement confirming end of controversial airport policing program in Atlanta

Client(s) Eric André and Clayton English

Four years after Jones Day, on behalf of entertainers Eric André and Clayton English, filed a federal lawsuit challenging a program of coercive and discriminatory policing at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the parties reached a landmark settlement with Clayton County and its police department. New York University School of Law Policing Project, Canfield Law LLC, and Krevolin & Horst LLC served as co-counsel. Clayton County has now publicly confirmed that it has ended the airport interdiction program at the center of the lawsuit—a program through which Clayton County police officers targeted hundreds of travelers for encounters without reasonable suspicion, including Mr. André and Mr. English. As part of the settlement, the County has also 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.

Originally filed in October 2022, the lawsuit alleged that both men were unlawfully profiled and stopped in nearly identical incidents several months apart as part of a program operated by Clayton County police's "Airport Interdiction Unit." 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.

André v. Clayton County, Georgia, 148 F.4th 1282 (11th Cir. 2025)