During an interview with Uptown magazine, Empire actress Taraji P Henson said her college-bound son, Marcell Dikembe Johnson, was racially profiled by Glendale police. She said her child “did exactly everything the cops told him to do, including letting them illegally search his car.” She added, “it was bogus because they didn’t give him the ticket for what he was pulled over for” which was driving through a lit crosswalk as a pedestrian crossed.
But after watching video, released by the Glendale Police Department, which captured the encounter between Henson’s son and the officer, Henson apologized. When the officer asks Henson’s son if he has any illegal items in his car, Johnson admitted “to having marijuana and prescription drug Ritalin.” After finding marijuana in the car, the officer said: “I am not going to give you a citation for running that yellow because that would actually put a moving violation on your driver’s license, and you are going to have to go to traffic school and all that stuff, so I am helping you by not giving you a violation on it. All I am going to do is take the weed from you.”