Django Unchained actress Daniele Watts has
penned a backhanded apology to police and her neighbors about the high
profile saga which played out after she and her boyfriend Brian Lucas
had public sex in their car.
At first the duo accused Los Angeles
police of racial profiling, saying they were arrested in September for
being an interracial couple.
Eventually, in May, Watts
pleaded no contest to disturbing the peace with loudness and was ordered
to write an apology to three police officers and the occupants of a
building near where she was briefly detained last year.
The pair was later charged with lewd conduct, but that count was dismissed in May.
Watts and Lucas, who entered the same
plea, were sentenced to 40 hours of community service and must remain
out of trouble for a year.
Lucas took to Facebook to specifically
claim the LAPD arrested them because they assumed his girlfriend was a
prostitute because they saw an interracial couple.
A recording of the arrest by one of the
officers involved showed that Watts accused the police of racism when
she refused to produce ID after a series of 911 calls from witnesses
claiming a couple was having sex in their car.
‘Do you know how many times the cops have
been called just for being black? Just because I am black and he’s
white? I’m just being really honest,’ she said to LAPD Sgt. Jim Parker.
In the recording Watts exclaims ‘You are not the one who is in handcuffs’
‘You’re not the one who’s spent your life
being called a n***** and growing up in the south, and now I get the
cops called on me.
‘The cop pulled us over because he thought I was a prostitute.’
Parker later said in an interview with the
MailOnline that he thought it was incorrect for Watts to accuse him and
the other two officers of prejudice because he is gay and the other two
police were a woman and a Latino.
Parker said he
released the audio in an attempt so show that he was simply responding
to a 911 calls that told the dispatcher Watts and Lucas were having sex
with the door open and was reasonable during their encounter.
He also added that it was Watts’ attitude and uncooperative nature that caused her to be arrested.
In the immediate aftermath, prominent
civil rights leaders took up Watts’ cause, but then asked her to
apologize when the audio and pictures showing Watts sitting on top of
Lucas inside his car were made public.
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