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Daniele Watts, best known for her role in Quentin Tarantino's
2012 slavery western "Django Unchained", made headlines last
September when she said she had been accosted by police largely
because she is black and her boyfriend is white.
Watts and her boyfriend, Brian James Lucas, each pleaded no
contest to a count of disturbing the peace by loudness in a Los
Angeles court, Los Angeles City Attorney's Office spokesman Rob
Wilcox said.
As part of the deal, both will have to serve 40 hours of
community service, obey the law, and write apology letters to a
sergeant and two officers involved in the arrest and occupants
of a building near the scene, Wilcox said.
Watts was handcuffed by police on Sept. 11 after they responded
to a report from a passer-by that she and Lucas, a celebrity
chef, were indecently exposed inside a silver Mercedes in the
Los Angeles neighborhood of Studio City.
The couple later took to social media to accuse officers of
violating her rights.
Watts said then on her Facebook page she was arrested "after
refusing to agree that I had done something wrong by showing
affection, fully clothed, in a public place." Lucas said on his
page that police thought Watts was a prostitute because of the
couple's attire and their skin color.
Lou Shapiro, an attorney for Watts and Lucas, told the Los
Angeles Times newspaper his clients were happy with the deal.
"I think it's a nice ending to an emotionally charged case, to
have a letter of apology. Its a win for everybody," he said.
The couple's initial claims came as scrutiny over police
interactions with African-Americans had been heightened
following high profile police killings of unarmed black men in
Ferguson, Missouri, New York City and elsewhere last year.
(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Alex
Richardson)
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