Charging “Django Unchained” actress with lewd conduct smacks of payback

How disturbing that actress Daniele Watts and her boyfriend, the chef Brian James Lucas, have been charged with lewd conduct for that incident last month in Studio City. You remember that whole ridiculous exchange, of course. Someone called the cops to report that they were having sex in their car; when police arrived, Watts was standing outside the vehicle. Instead of showing the officer her ID as requested, she pitched a fit. It was embarrassing.

But while she may have been over the top, the responding officer, LAPD Sgt. Jim Parker, was beyond condescending. I wrote about that here. Parker had captured the exchange on audio tape, and in an understandable but self-serving act, released it to TMZ to forestall mounting criticism that this looked like yet another bogus, racially motivated stop. (Watts is black; Lucas is white.)

As my colleague Sandy Banks reported, Parker actually violated department policy when he decided to slip the audio tape to the gossip website. It went viral, and set off yet another debate about race and policing. Parker also went on KFI—without department permission, LAPD spokesman Andew Neiman told me then--to defend himself. “He was acting as a private citizen,” Neiman said. Uh-huh.

According to my colleagues Richard Winton and Kate Mather, the Los Angeles city attorney’s office has now leveled misdemeanor charges against the couple. If they are convicted, they face up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. I guess we’ll eventually find out why the city attorney has decided to waste everybody’s time on this.

But here’s where the whole thing falls apart for me. On Tuesday, Parker told my colleagues that Watts and Lucas brought their legal problems on themselves -- not because they may or may not have had sex, but because of how they behaved afterward.

“If they had handled this situation in a civil manner, they would have never been charged or detained for that long,” he said. “I would have been gone in five minutes.”

Oh really? So they’re being prosecuted for failing to be civil?

That is probably the most honest statement anyone in this case has made so far.

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