James Blake Mistaken for Suspect, Tackled and Handcuffed by NYPD: Report

By VINCENT SALZO

Former Fairfield resident and tennis great James Blake was mistaken for a suspect in an identity theft ring in New York and was tackled, slammed to the ground and handcuffed by five plainclothes NYPD officers outside his midtown hotel on Wednesday afternoon, the NY Daily News reports.

Blake, a 35-year-old African American, told the Daily News that he was waiting for a car to take him to Flushing Meadows, where he was making corporate appearances for Time-Warner Cable, and was texting when he looked up and saw someone in shorts and a T-Shirt charging at him.

Blake, a Fairfield Warde graduate, gave the Daily News the following account of what happened next:

“Maybe I’m naïve, but I just assumed it was someone I went to high school with or something who was running at me to give me a big hug, so I smiled at the guy,” Blake said. Blake said the officer, who he said was not wearing a badge, picked him up and threw him down on the sidewalk, yelled at him to roll over on his face and said, “Don’t say a word.”

Blake told the officer he would cooperate and was eventually surround by five officers in all and was told he had been identified by two people as someone who had been involved in an identity-theft ring operating in the area recently, according to the Daily News.

Blake was handcuffed for about 15 minutes and he told the Daily News that the last of the five officers eventually realized they had the wrong person and apologized but the first officer who tackled him never said anything.

Blake said that all of the officers involved were white. He told the Daily News that he would like an apology from the NYPD and would like to know that there would be some repercussions for the officers involved, “so they know it’s not okay to go out there and do this again tomorrow.”

Read the full report at the NY Daily News here.