Monday 15 September 2014

Django Actress "handcuffed and detained"

US actress Daniele Watts has said she was "handcuffed and detained" by two Los Angeles police officers who apparently mistook her for a prostitute.
The Django Unchained star said she was approached by the officers after kissing her white husband, Brian James Lucas, in public.

 According to accounts on the couple's Facebook pages, Ms Watts was talking on her mobile phone to her father when an officer approached.
 Believing she had done nothing wrong, she said she walked away. Two other officers from the Studio City Police Department then arrived and asked for ID.

 
When she refused they handcuffed her and put her in the back of their car while they checked who she was.
 She was released shortly afterwards.

 Ms Watts wrote: "Today I was handcuffed and detained by two 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 accused the police officers of 'accosting' her

 "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 two different police officers accosted me and forced me into handcuffs."

 Pictures of the incident taken by Watts' husband show the actress looking visibly upset as one of the police officers addresses her.
 "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," she added in her Facebook post.

 "I was sitting in that back of this cop car, filled with adrenaline, my wrist bleeding in pain, and it occurred to me, that even there, I STILL HAD POWER OVER MY OWN SPIRIT.

 "Those cops could not stop me from expressing myself ... They could not force me to feel bad about myself. Yes, they had control over my physical body, but not my emotions. My feelings. My spirit was, and still is FREE."
 She added: "I will continue to look any “authority figure” in the eye without fear. NO POLICE OFFICER OR GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL IS MORE POWERFUL THAN ME. WE ARE EQUALS."

 A spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department told Variety magazine there was no record of the incident as Ms Watts was not brought into the station for questioning.

2 comments: