Taraji P. Henson publicly apologized to the Glendale Police Department after her claim that her son, Marcel Henson, had been racially profiled during a traffic stop was disproven.

Henson, who currently stars on Fox’s hit new show Empire, claimed that her 20-year-old son had been a victim of racial profiling in a recent interview with Uptown. “My child has been racially profiled. He was in Glendale, Calif., and did exactly everything the cops told him to do, including letting them illegally search his car. It was bogus because they didn’t give him the ticket for what he was pulled over for,” Henson told the magazine.

Video Of Marcel Henson’s Traffic Stop Surfaces

After the interview was published, Henson’s claims quickly went viral, inspiring many to do some investigating into the incident. Media outlets recovered the 40-minute dash cam video of Marcel’s interaction with a Glendale Police Officer on Oct. 18. In the video, Marcel is seen being pulled over for running a yellow light. During his conversation with the officer, Marcel admits that he has marijuana in the car, and the officer politely thanks him for being honest.

“I appreciate you being honest with me about the weed. I do appreciate that because I do smell weed,” the officer told Marcel before checking his ID.

Marcel is clearly cooperative throughout their exchange, stepping out of the vehicle when asked and accepting a citation for possession of marijuana, something the officer tells him is really a better deal than receiving a traffic violation.

“I’m gonna give you a citation for the marijuana…Listen, I’m not gonna give you a citation for running that yellow, because that’ll actually put a moving violation on your driver’s license, and you’re gonna have to do traffic school and all that stuff. So I’m helping you out by not giving you a violation on that. All I’m gonna do is take the weed,” the officer tells Marcel.

Taraji P Henson Apologizes To Glendale Police Department

After video of Marcel’s brush with the law surfaced, Henson took to Instagram to offer the Glendale Police Department an apology. Henson apologized for jumping to conclusions and added that she overreacted as a mother. Henson also thanked the officer who pulled Marcel over for his kindness.

“I would like to publicly apologize to the officer and the Glendale Police Department. A mother’s job is not easy and neither is a police officer’s…. As a mother in this case I overreacted and for that I apologize. Thank you to that officer for being kind to my son,” Henson wrote.

#TurningANegativeIntoAPositive #LoveTarajiPHenson

A photo posted by taraji p henson (@tarajiphenson) on Mar 27, 2015 at 2:59pm PDT

Article by Olivia Truffaut-Wong

Olivia Truffaut-Wong was born and raised in Berkeley, California, where she developed her love of all things entertainment. After moving to New York City to earn her degree in Film Studies, she stayed on the East Coast to follow her passion and become an entertainment writer. She lives on a diet of television, movies and food.