“Empire” star Taraji P. Henson issued an apology late Friday to the Glendale Police Department for accusing an officer of racially profiling her son during a traffic stop last fall.
“I would like to publicly apologize to the officer and the Glendale Police Department,” Henson said in an Instagram post. “A mother’s job is not easy and neither is a police officer’s.”
“Sometimes as humans WE overreact without gathering all of the facts,” Henson continued. “As a mother in this case I overreacted and for that I apologize.”
“Thank you to that officer for being kind to my son,” she said.
“Empire” actress said in February that she planned to transfer her son to Howard University after he experienced racial profiling while visiting schools in Southern California.
“He was in Glendale, California and did exactly everything the cops told him to do, including letting them illegally search his car,” Henson told Uptown magazine.
“It was bogus because they didn’t give him the ticket for what he was pulled over for,” she added.
However, in the 40-minute video obtained by the L.A. Times, Marcel Henson is shown running a yellow light at a crosswalk where a pedestrian is attempting to cross. He is then pulled over for that offense.
Henson admits to the officer that he has marijuana in the car, and the officer thanks Henson for his honesty.
The officer asks Marcel Henson to sign an admission of guilt for a lesser offense similar to failure to stop at a stop sign, which avoids the harsher penalties of points on his license and mandatory traffic school that a moving violation would carry.