Video of James Blake being tackled by undercover officer
NYPD release surveillance footage of ex-tennis star's takedown
The former international tennis star thrown to the ground and roughly handcuffed by a New York City cop outside a midtown Manhattan hotel said Saturday the officer should be fired.
James Blake’s call for Officer James Frascatore to lose his job came a day after the NYPD released a security video that shows Blake being charged at and grabbed as he waited for a ride to the U.S. Open, on Wednesday outside a hotel and then being thrown to the ground after the cop mistook him for a credit card fraudster.
“I don’t think he deserves to have a badge,” Blake told the New York Post in an interview at the Waldorf Astoria. “I hope he can never do that to anyone else and get away with it. I hope he can never do that again under the shield of the New York Police Department.”
Blake told The Associated Press Saturday that Frascatore's history of excessive-force complaints means he shouldn't "ever have a badge or a gun again."
The Post said Frascatore has faced four civilian complaints and has at least four excessive-force lawsuits filed against him.
He has been stripped of his badge and gun pending an investigation.
Blake told the paper that’s just a start.
“I know they put him on modified assignment, which is a good first step, but I do think there needs to be more actions taken,” he said. “It’s not his first brush with a civilian complaint. I don’t think this is his first time doing this. I don’t think this is one error in judgment. I think it’s a pattern and it needs to be corrected.”
The paper cited sources as saying that when Frascatore came up to Blake, he identified himself, yelling, “Police! Don’t move!”
Blake told the Post the officer is lying.
“Yes. I’m not mincing words here,” he said after being asked if Frascatore’s account was false. “In my opinion he should never have a badge again because I think it’s people like him that give the entire force a bad name.”
Blake was once the No. 4 in the world and a U.S. Davis Cup champion. He attended Harvard and now lives in the New York City suburbs. The incident happened outside the Grand Hyatt New York near Grand Central Station.
The mayor and police commissioner have apologized to Blake.
Both the Post and the AP said Frascatore could not be reached for comment.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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