Daniele Watts should apologise to LAPD: Civil rights leaders

September 21, 2014 05:56 pm | Updated 05:56 pm IST - LOS ANGELES

Civil rights activists have asked the ‘Django Unchained’ actress Daniele Watts to apologise to the LA Police Department for accusing them of detaining her because she is black.

Watts had allegedly said on September 11 in her Facebook post that the police mistook her for a prostitute then detained her briefly because she showed affection for her white husband.

The police officers on the other hand called Watts’ claims ‘malicious and false’, said The Hollywood Reporter.

Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable president Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Project Islamic Hope president Najee Ali and other activists said they now have doubts about Watts’ side of the story.

“I was one that was very outspoken about it. We take racial profiling very seriously. It’s not a play thing. It’s not trivial,” Hutchinson said about having come to Watts’ defence when her story first broke.

He said that, based on photos taken that show Watts straddling boyfriend Brian James Lucas in a car, he now believes there was ‘provable cause for the detention’

He added about Watts’ Facebook post, “It’s like crying wolf.”

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