James Blake’s Arrest Brings Swift Apologies

From New York Officials
By BENJAMIN MUELLER, AL BAKER and LIZ ROBBINS SEPT. 10, 2015
A New York Police Department officer was stripped of his gun and badge as Mayor
Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner William J. Bratton issued swift apologies on
Thursday for the rough arrest of James Blake, the retired tennis star, after he was
misidentified as a suspect in a fraudulent credit card ring.
Criticism swirled over whether Mr. Blake had been mistreated because he was
biracial. But it was Mr. Bratton’s acknowledgment that excessive force may have
been used when an officer threw him to the ground that put a renewed national focus
on the everyday arrest tactics long criticized by members of minority groups. The
officers failed to report the mistaken arrest, as they were required to do, raising the
possibility that it would not have come to light had Mr. Blake not spoken out.
The incongruity of a Harvard-educated professional athlete being manhandled
by six white plainclothes officers on a sidewalk in Midtown Manhattan quickly
became an embarrassment for the Police Department and a headache for Mr. de
Blasio, exposing the kind of unprovoked aggression that he and elected leaders
across the country have sought to stamp out.
The officer’s decision to throw an unarmed, compliant man to the ground added
to the sense that black people are often roughed up by the police out of view, with
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few resources to bring attention to their grievances. In a sign of the shifting
discourse on race and policing, Mr. de Blasio and Mr. Bratton moved with unusual
speed to contact Mr. Blake to apologize. But the gestures also raised questions about
whether they would have moved so swiftly if the encounter had not involved a
well-known figure.
“This shouldn’t have happened and he shouldn’t have been treated that way,”
Mr. de Blasio said in an interview on NY1 on Thursday, echoing remarks made
earlier by Mr. Bratton.
By late Thursday, Mr. Bratton had conveyed his apology in a conversation with
Mr. Blake, and Mr. de Blasio had exchanged text messages with Mr. Blake.
The actions of the officer, James Frascatore, were under review by internal
affairs investigators and the Civilian Complaint Review Board. At least three forcerelated
complaints, one of which was partially substantiated, were filed against
Officer Frascatore, 38, with the review board in 2013, said a law enforcement official,
who spoke anonymously because the police inquiry was continuing.
Video of the arrest reviewed by the authorities revealed how a botched sting
operation had ensnared a sports celebrity, resulting in his being body-slammed to
the sidewalk, according to his account, and handcuffed for 15 minutes on Wednesday
afternoon.
The team of officers, looking for suspects in a credit card fraud ring, were
relying on a courier who identified Mr. Blake as one of the buyers, the police said.
The officers also had an Instagram photo of someone believed to be involved. That
person, who Mr. Bratton said looked like Mr. Blake’s “twin brother,” turned out to
have no role in the scheme.
Officer Frascatore then ran toward Mr. Blake and knocked him to the ground,
raising concerns about “the inappropriateness of the amount of force that was used
during the arrest,” Mr. Bratton said.
After releasing Mr. Blake, the officers did not fill out a “void arrest” form,
leaving Mr. Bratton to learn what had happened from members of his public affairs
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staff, who told him about news reports about the episode.
Efforts to reach Officer Frascatore on Thursday night were unsuccessful. The
Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association said in a statement that it had been “premature
and unwarranted” to place him on desk duty.
Mr. Blake, 35, who retired from tennis two years ago, said the episode had
drawn attention to the kind of rough arrest tactics that he believed were all too
common in New York City.
“I do think most cops are doing a great job keeping us safe, but when you police
with reckless abandon, you need to be held accountable,” Mr. Blake, whose mother is
white and whose father was black, said in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning
America.”
The self-effacing tennis star, known on the tour for his speed and
sportsmanship, was leaving the Grand Hyatt New York on East 42nd Street around
noon on Wednesday to make an appearance for a corporate sponsor at the United
States Open when Officer Frascatore, who was dressed in street clothes, barreled
toward him.
“I was standing there doing nothing — not running, not resisting, in fact
smiling,” Mr. Blake said, explaining that he thought the man might have been an old
friend. Then, he said, the 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 the officers push Mr. Blake face-first into a large,
mirrored building support beam near the Hyatt. With his head wrenched to the side
and his hands cuffed behind him, Mr. Blake tried to talk.
“He told them, ‘I have my U.S. Open badge in my pocket,’ ” Mr. Sanders said.
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Mr. Blake said Officer Frascatore did not explain why he was being detained. He
counted himself lucky, he added, for not accidentally showing signs of resistance,
and emerging with nothing more than cuts and bruises. He has retained Kevin
Marino, a prominent New Jersey criminal defense lawyer.
“This happens too often,” Mr. Blake said, “and most of the time it’s not to
someone like me.”
The bungled arrest arose out of an investigation into 16 fraudulent American
Express credit card transactions, totaling about $18,000, that the police learned
about on Monday from an Internet company that buys and delivers property for
people in Manhattan. The police asked the company to let them supervise a delivery
if the suspects made another purchase, said Robert K. Boyce, the chief of detectives,
as they did the next day.
A delivery of high-end designer shoes was arranged for Wednesday, at the
Hyatt’s concierge desk.
One of the buyers, a British man, James Short, 27, who was in New York on a
student visa, met the courier and was immediately arrested. The courier then
pointed to Mr. Blake from eight feet away, Chief Boyce said, identifying the tennis
star as someone who had also bought items using false credit card information.
Officer Frascatore, a four-year veteran of the force, made a “fast approach,” Mr.
Bratton said, grabbing Mr. Blake by the arm and taking him to the ground. Because
he was working in street clothes, Officer Frascatore was not wearing a visible badge.
Mr. Blake was released when a retired police officer working as a security officer
at the Hyatt told the officers they had detained a tennis star.
The officers found the second suspect they were seeking in the hotel and
arrested him. Mr. Short and the second man, Jarmaine Grey, 26, were charged with
grand larceny, identity theft and criminal possession of stolen property. At their
arraignment late Thursday in Manhattan Criminal Court, both men were ordered
held on $50,000 bond or cash with a 72-hour surety. They were also ordered to turn
in their passports.
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Mr. Blake told Mr. Bratton that he accepted the apology, but also made a firm
request of the commissioner, according to a person with knowledge of the
investigation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because it was continuing.
“He made the point that it is very much a bigger issue,” the person said. “That
this is what happens every day and that this needs to be the start of a conversation
about the ‘us and them’ attitude, how to deal with the policing in the communities
where this occurs most frequently.”
Mr. Bratton, speaking at the news conference earlier in the day, was unequivocal
in denying that race had played a role, saying, “I don’t believe at all that race was a
factor.”
For Mr. Blake, a New York native who attended Harvard for two years before
turning pro, the arrest was not the first time his race had thrown him into the
spotlight. In 2001, he was locked in a fierce match at the U.S. Open when his
opponent, Lleyton Hewitt, started arguing repeated foot-fault calls by one linesman.
“Look at him,” Mr. Hewitt shouted, pointing to the linesman, who was black.
“Look at him,” Mr. Hewitt said again, pointing to Mr. Blake. “You tell me what the
similarity is.”
Mr. Blake played down Mr. Hewitt’s remark at the time. He did the same on
Thursday with regard to the suggestion that he had been racially profiled, though he
told The Daily News a day earlier that “there’s probably a race factor involved.”
An active officer with more than 150 arrests, Officer Frascatore has received six
citations for excellent police duty and meritorious service, the law enforcement
official familiar with his work history said. The force-related complaint against him
in 2013 that was partially substantiated was for failing to properly identify himself in
a search situation.
A second law enforcement official, who also spoke anonymously because the
investigation was continuing, said the inquiry was focused on two questions: what
the officer was thinking when he rushed at Mr. Blake, and whether he used
appropriate force, even if he believed Mr. Blake was the right person.
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