Black Woman Arrested For Kissing Her White Husband

Danièle Watts

 Django Unchained African-American actress, Daniele Watts was allegedly handcuffed and detained whilst out with her white husband after being mistaken for a sex worker.The news spread across the internet like wildfire. For many, it’s hard to believe that this kind of racism still exists in America until it’s shoved into your news feed. 

Danièle Watts is now suing the Los Angeles Police Department after, she says, her arm was cut when officers briefly detained her outside a studio in Hollywood earlier this month. 

Her hubby, celebrity chef Brian James Lucas, who is known as Chef Be*Live, claimed he was told that a neighbour had called the police when they spotted the couple kissing in a car. 

He said on his Facebook page: “I could tell that whoever called on us (including the officers), saw a tatted [tattooed] white boy and a hot bootee shorted black girl and thought we were a HO (prostitute) & a TRICK (client). 

“This is something that happened to her and her father when she was 16. What an assumption to make!”

Watts posted several photographs of the moment she was detained to Facebook, writing that she was proud she had been “honest” enough to weep angry tears as she was being held after failing to comply with a request to produce her ID. 

She 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.” 

Originally from Atlanta Georgia, Watts did her training at the British American Drama Academy in London. She played Coco in Django Unchained, and has also appeared in the hit television drama Weeds.

The couple is reported to have engaged a lawyer to bring a legal case against the police. The force did not comment. 

Describing the incident in detail on her Facebook page, Watts said: “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. 

“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!

“I was sitting in that back of this cop car, filled with adrenalin, 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 stop the cathartic tears and rage from flowing out of me. They could not force me to feel bad about myself.

“The tears I cry for a country that calls itself ‘the land of the free and the home of the brave’ and yet detains people for claiming that very right.” 

“Because of my past experience with the law, I gave [the officer] my ID knowing we did nothing wrong and when they asked D for hers, she refused to give it because they had no right to do so. 

“So they handcuffed her and threw her roughly into the back of the cop car until they could figure out who she was. In the process of handcuffing her, they cut her wrist, which was truly not cool! 

“Our freedom isn't freedom folks, when people can abuse others with no reason or evidence at all just because they "think" they have been given the power by people that are only equal to us.

“Of course, they had to let her go eventually cuz we weren't a threat to anyone. 

They weren't expecting D to be so intelligent and outspoken, and left truly feeling the fear vibration finding out that they had just f***** with two celebrities.” 

The LAPD, which patrols the Studio City area where Watts was stopped, initially refused to comment on the grounds that there was no incident report as she was not taken back to the station and was allowed to proceed after a brief period in handcuffs. 

However, a spokesman later said an investigation had been launched into the incident - and insisted the officers had been responding to a report of indecent exposure. 

She added: "Upon further investigation it was determined that no crime had been committed.  Watts and her companion were subsequently released."

In an interview with Buzzfeed, Lucas said that the officers repeatedly pressed him to confirm that he "really knew" Watts. 

He admitted that he was not specifically asked if the actress was a prostitute, but said that was what was implied in the questioning. 

Both Watts and Lucas said that they were conscious of racial overtones to the encounter as they spoke to police. 

However, the actress said: “It wasn’t a black white thing, it was more about something like a hypocrisy.”