Desk Duty for Officer Involved in Detaining James Blake, Ex-Tennis Pro

Desk Duty for Officer Involved in Detaining James Blake, Ex-Tennis Pro

A New York Police Department officer who was involved in mistakenly detaining James Blake, a retired top-10 professional tennis player, has been placed on desk duty, the police said on Thursday.

Mr. Blake said he was pushed to the ground by a police officer outside his hotel in Midtown Manhattan on Wednesday and was handcuffed by several officers who had mistaken him for a suspect in an investigation of possible credit card fraud. The player, whose mother is white and whose father was black, said he had cuts and bruises as a result of the encounter.

The police commissioner, William J. Bratton, speaking on CNN on Thursday morning, rejected the notion that race was a factor in the misidentification of Mr. Blake, 35, who retired two years ago and was in New York to make appearances for corporate sponsors at the United States Open.

“Let’s put that nonsense to rest right now,” Mr. Bratton said. “Race has nothing to do with this.”
The commissioner said that the police had a photograph of a suspect in the credit card fraud investigation, and that the man “looks like the twin brother of Mr. Blake.”
The officers who detained Mr. Blake acted on information from someone at the hotel who identified him as having bought a phone with false credit card information, Mr. Bratton said. The Police Department placed one officer on modified assignment, or desk duty, after reviewing video of the episode.

Mr. Blake, who was heading to the Open, left the Grand Hyatt New York on East 42nd Street around noon on Wednesday when he was accosted by a plainclothes officer, he said in an interview with The Daily News.

Mr. Blake, who is 6 feet 1 inch tall, said he was then surrounded by other officers and handcuffed. He said he told the officers who he was, but he was detained for 15 minutes while the police confirmed his identity.

“To me, it’s as simple as unnecessary police force, no matter what my race is,” Mr. Blake told The Daily News. “In my mind, there’s probably a race factor involved. But no matter what, there’s no reason for anybody to do that, to anybody.”
Asked whether the officers had used excessive force in detaining Mr. Blake, Mr. Bratton said on Thursday that the investigation was in its preliminary stages. He also said that investigators had been trying to speak to Mr. Blake at his hotel, without success, and that they would try to reach him at the Open on Thursday.

Plainclothes officers were at the hotel investigating a ring believed to be using fraudulent credit cards to buy cellphones, according to an official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the internal investigation into the episode involving Mr. Blake was continuing.

As part of the credit card investigation, the police had a private service deliver phones to a suspect at the hotel, the official said. Once the delivery took place, the suspect was arrested, the official said.
The delivery person then pointed out to the police two other people in the lobby to whom he said he had delivered phones a day earlier.

At that point, the official said, the officers “detained those two people as well.” One was Mr. Blake.

He was released after a retired police officer recognized him.

Among the questions about the episode are how long Mr. Blake was detained — the police said he was in handcuffs for less than a minute — and when the plainclothes officers identified themselves. He says that they initially did not.