Today James Blake, who had flown into New York on a red-eye flight from his home in San Diego, finished an interview with Inside Tennis’ Lucia Hoffman and was waiting in front of the Grand Hyatt hotel on 42nd for a car to go to the US Open site when he saw a man in shorts rushing towards him.
He presumed it was one of his excited fans who was happy to see him. Instead it was a plainclothes New York policeman who tackled him. Soon, four other plainclothes policemen surrounded him.
According to the New York Daily News, the officers mistook Blake for a suspect in an identity theft investigation. Police said a “cooperating witness” mistakenly identified Blake as being part of a ring involving “fraudulently purchased cellphones.” “It was definitely scary and definitely crazy,” Blake told the Daily News, which reported that he suffered a cut to his left elbow and bruises to his left leg:
Blake said he had just answered a few questions from [which were from us] and was texting when he looked up and saw someone in shorts and a T-shirt charging at him outside the Hyatt, the official hotel for the U.S. Tennis Association.
“Maybe I’m naïve, but I just assumed it was someone I went to high school with or someone who was running at me to give me a big hug, so I smiled at the guy, 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 responded, “I’m going to do whatever you say. I’m going to cooperate. But do you mind if I ask what this is all about?”
An officer said, “We’ll tell you. You are in safe hands.”
Said Blake, “I didn’t feel very safe.”
The Daily News reported that Blake was handcuffed for about 15 minutes before officers realized they had the wrong person
The New York Police Department did not offer an apology. Instead they released a statement saying that there would be an internal investigation. The department has been involved in a number of recent cases involving accusations of “Ferguson-like” police brutality, including the death of Eric Garner, which led to widespread protests when the officers involved in Garner’s violent arrest weren’t criminally charged.
Blake told the Daily News that at first he didn’t want to discuss the incident, but then felt obligated to draw attention to the misdirected policing and profiling. He told the BBC that while “there’s probably a race factor involved,” he wanted to focus on the use of excessive force. “I have resources to get to the bottom of this. I have a voice,” Blake told the Daily News. “But what about someone who doesn’t have those resources and doesn’t have a voice?”
“The real problem is that I was tackled for no reason and that happens to a lot of people who don’t have a media outlet to voice that to.”
Blake’s mother Betty told IT, “All I can say to you is that I am very scared for my sons. James was knocked to the ground, but the way things are in our society today he could have been shot – and I am scared.”
She added, “That’s what I have to say. I think it’s just an awful thing and I just hope there are repercussions and I just hope James can say something for people who don’t have a voice, but which this might happen to. Maybe that would do something to alleviate the situation in this country right now.”
Incredibly, a string of bizarre incidents have occurred to the personable and vastly popular former tennis star. No, we are not talking about one of the most famous missed shots in US Open history: a forehand against Andre Agassi that flied, just inches long, in arguably the most scintillating men’s night match in history. Had it gone in, Blake would have had match point.
Rather, there was the time James ran into a net post in Italy and broke his neck. A case of shingles temporarily paralyzed his face. He lost his beloved father prematurely to cancer, and there was a murder-suicide and fire in the Tampa house he was leasing in 2014.
In 2001, early in his US Open career, Lleyton Hewitt suggested that a line call made by an African-American linesman was racially motivated. “Look at him,” said Hewitt, gesturing at the linesman. “And look at him,” pointing at Blake. “You tell me what the similarity is.”
Fourteen years later there was a certain similarity in the reaction from the often mellow Blake, who at first hesitated to say race was involved in the incident.
Roger Federer declined to make an extensive comment. But he told IT that, “You hope these things don’t happen.”
