Oh to be racially profiled, gotta love it! Now we can add retired (half black) tennis star, James Blake, to the list of people accused of a crime they didn’t commit.
On Wednesday, five plain clothes NYPD cops skipped stop and frisk and went directly to stop and beat-you-the-f*ck up. The incident took place in Manhattan outside the Grand Hyatt Hotel around noon. NYPD officers were investigating a theft ring involving fraudulently purchased cell phones at the Grand Hyatt. Blake, who was on his phone outside the hotel, on his way to make a corporate appearance for Time Warner Cable at the U.S. Open, was approached by the 5 (white) cops who he says, did not identify themselves. One cop in particular charged him and slammed him into the sidewalk. One cop ordered him not to say a word. Blake says that he continued smiling through the ordeal in an attempt to diffuse the situation and show the cops that they have his 100% cooperation. After holding him for 15 minutes, cops finally agreed to check his identification. It wasn’t until a retired NYPD cop recognized who he was that they realized they “made a mistake.” “That is James Blake, the tennis player,” the NYPD retiree told them. Of course you should recognize him, he was once ranked the #4 tennis player in the world.
Excuse me while I roll my eyes heavily. Hopefully they don’t get stuck that way.
Blake sustained an eye injury, suffered a cut to his left elbow and bruises to his left leg. “It was definitely scary and definitely crazy,” 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.”
Blake told Good Morning America on Thursday, “Most cops are doing a great job of keeping us safe, but when you police with reckless abandon, you need to be held accountable,” adding that those “doing police work the wrong way need to pay for those actions and be shown either the door or whatever they need to do to punish them.”
“If you take a look at the photograph of the suspect, it looks like the twin brother of Mr Blake,” the police commissioner told CNN. He also said that a witness identified Blake as the suspect. You know who else Blake looks like? Tyson Chandler, Joe Budden, Carlos Boozer, Kenyon Martin, any other light skin man with a beard. The police commissioner says he’d like to speak to Blake, but Blake has not answered his calls. Mayor Bill de Blasio also intends to apologize. The officer that slammed Blake to the concrete has been placed on desk duty while the NYPD investigates whether excessive force was used.
I guess even light skin/biracial (black) men aren’t safe either.
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