De Blasio and Bratton Apologize for Arrest of James Blake, Ex-Tennis Pro
Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York City’s police commissioner apologized on Thursday for the mistaken arrest of James Blake, a retired top-10 professional tennis player, who said he was slammed to the ground outside his hotel in Midtown Manhattan after being confused for a suspect in a credit card fraud investigation.
..“I was standing there doing nothing — not running, not resisting, in fact smiling,” Mr. Blake said. Then, he said, an officer “picked me up and body slammed me and put me on the ground and told me to turn over and shut my mouth, and put the cuffs on me.”
A man who sells newspapers near the entrance to Grand Central Terminal, said he watched the police rough up Mr. Blake.
“They were real aggressive, like he robbed a bank,” the man, Charlie Sanders, 55, said. “They were shoving him around.”
.. Mr. Sanders said he saw Mr. Blake, his hands cuffed behind his back, being handled aggressively by a half-dozen undercover officers. The officers shoved Mr. Blake face first into a large, mirrored building support beam near the Grand Hyatt, Mr. Sanders recalled.
.. Mr. Blake, who retired two years ago, said that the detective who pushed him to the ground never identified himself and did not answer his questions. He was detained for 15 minutes, Mr. Blake said, and the encounter left him with cuts and bruises.
.. But Mr. Bratton was unequivocal in denying that Mr. Blake was racially profiled. “I don’t believe at all that race was a factor,” he said.
.. The detectives were supposed to have filled out a voided arrest report about the incident with Mr. Blake, police officials said, but they did not. That left Mr. Bratton to learn of the arrest through news reports later in the day. “There’s department protocols that should have been followed, and apparently were not followed,” he said.