Actress Daniele Watts, who played the role of CoCo, a house slave, in the Academy Award winning movie Django Unchained, was detained by the police for allegedly "showing affection" in public.
Watts revealed her ordeal via a Facebook post on and divulged that she and boyfriend Brian Lucas were accosted by the cops near Studio City California on Thursday, Sept. 11.
"Today I was handcuffed and detained by 2 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 wrote in the Facebook post.
The actress revealed that she was standing on a footway near a tree and speaking to her father on the phone. She walked away when the cops arrived as she knew she not done anything incorrect. However, while on the phone with her father, Watts was forced into handcuffs by the police after refusing to show her ID.
Watts and Lucas both are of the opinion that they were targeted as the police officers presumed that the couple were a prostitute and her client. The action also seems to have undertones of racial discrimination as Watts is black and her boyfriend is white. The sentiment was echoed by Lucas who took to Facebook as well to vent his ire.
"From the questions that he asked me as D was already on her phone with her dad, I could tell that whoever called on us (including the officers), saw a tatted RAWKer white boy and a hot bootie shorted black girl and thought we were a HO (prostitute) & a TRICK (client)," wrote Cheffy BeLive aka Lucas.
The video of Watts taken by boyfriend Lucas via a mobile shows her suffering as the 24-year old actress pleads with the unrelenting cops.
While the cops eventually let Watts go, a picture posted by Lucas on Facebook suggests that the actress got a cut on her arm because of the handcuffs. The incident has created quite a furor with several people voicing their support for Watts on Facebook.
On Sunday, Sept. 14, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) responded to the controversy and revealed that the accused police officers were acting on "a radio call of indecent exposure." The caller had said that a man and a woman inside a Silver Mercedes were engaged in "indecent exposure" and had the door of the car open.
The officers in turn had located the individuals who fit the description and were detained. However, investigation revealed that they had not committed any crime and were consequently, released.
The LAPD, however, has begun an internal investigation into the unfortunate incident.
