Two Black Comedians Sue Police Over Search at Atlanta Airport in Search of Racial Slurs. [Photo by George Walker IV – Own work]
At Atlanta International Airport, a TSA search for racial slurs is being questioned by two black comedians who say they were the target of a search by TSA officers at the airport.
The two comedians, Bill Burr and Eddie Lesh, took a flight from Los Angeles on June 5th and say they were on the JetBlue flight to Atlanta, but left before the flight doors closed and boarded the airline’s private terminal.
“There were four officers behind me, that’s why I didn’t see them coming and I was able to walk around the plane without drawing any attention,” Lesh says.
Lesh says the officers told him and Burr they were looking for racial slurs.
After their flight back to San Diego, Burr and Lesh say they received a call from the LA-based Black Entertainment Television network and were asked about the incident to try and verify that the officers who searched them were working on behalf of the TSA.
“This is what we thought was our flight, and now we’re looking over our shoulder and thinking, ‘Well, what are they going to do to us?’” Lesh says.
“We’re not the ones doing this, it’s the TSA,” Burr says. “If they’re not the ones doing this, then explain to me what are they doing here in the first place? Why did they pick a private terminal? This airline is not owned by the TSA. It’s owned by American Airlines.”
Lesh says he was not aware of the TSA incident, nor was he aware that Burr had received a call regarding the incident.
“We were just trying to go on vacation, the TSA is one of the reasons we can’t go places,” Lesh says. “We don’t think this is right and I feel like we were kind of set up.”
Burr echoed Lesh’s sentiments, saying, “What if I’ve got racist signs on me?”
It is not the first time a comedian has found himself in a TSA search as of late. In 2014, comedian John Fugelsang was asked by a TSA agent