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The LAPD officer who was criticized for handcuffing Django Unchained actress Daniele Watts last week in Studio City said the situation was a "long, drawn-out drama."
LAPD Sgt. Jim Parker approached Watts and her boyfriend, celebrity chef Brian James Lucas, last Thursday afternoon after authorities received a 9-1-1 call about a couple having sex in their car with the door open near CBS Studios. After Parker asked for their IDs, Lucas complied, but Watts refused to hand over her ID, saying that she was not in the wrong and they were merely kissing. That's when she was handcuffed and briefly detained. Police let them both go when they found that no crime had been committed.
The couple claimed that Parker assumed Watts was a prostitute because she's black and that Lucas, who is white, was her client. Lucas told BuzzFeed that the officers kept asking him, "Do you really know her?" Parker told the L.A. Times the thought never even crossed his mind. “I was trying to ID them and leave - nobody wanted them arrested for having sex in public,” Parker said. “But then she went into her tirade.”
TMZ obtained the police audio recording of the detainment, where Watts can be heard saying to Parker: "I bet there is at least one person up there that is a racist. I bet you. I bet you're a little bit racist."
Parker told the Times, "I figured I could take care of this call and go get coffee and that was it."
