NYPD officer who violently tackled tennis star James Blake ‘punished’ by losing 5 vacation days
NYPD Officer James Frascatore got a mere slap on the wrist for his violent take down of tennis star James Blake back in 2015.
NYPD Officer James Frascatore got a mere slap on the wrist for his violent take down of tennis star James Blake back in 2015.
Reportedly, sources told the Daily News that Frascatore received this minuscule punishment this past February after an internal investigation found the cop guilty of using excessive force.
The Citizen Complaint Review Board (CCRB) had recommended Frascatore lose double those days.
The September 9, 2015 incident occurred when Frascatore was on a stakeout waiting to spot and arrest a credit card scammer outside of a hotel in Midtown Manhattan. Blake was standing outside the hotel when Frascatore mistook Blake for the scammer and violently tackled the tennis pro to the ground.
Security camera captured the encounter. Frascatore is white and Blake is Black, so the incident was viewed as yet another example of police officers using excessive force with Black people.
Reaction to the Punishment
Through his attorney, Blake has expressed his disappointment with the cop’s punishment.
“Losing five vacation days for excessive force is a woefully inadequate penalty,” Blake’s lawyer Kevin Marino said in an interview. “Far from serving as a deterrent, a trivial penalty of that type would seem to be encouraging those inclined toward excessive force to go right on doing it.”
Last fall, CCRB’s attorney Jonathan Fogel honed in on how unnecessarily violent Frascatore’s action were. “He used violence first,” he said. “He used no words or warning, slamming him to the ground like a linebacker in NFL football.”
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Monifa Bandele, spokesperson for Communities United for Police Reform and Senior Vice President at MomsRising, says Frascatore has a history of inappropriate behavior in uniform and should have been fired years ago.
“He engaged in multiple incidents of misconduct, receiving five civilian complaints within seven months of 2013, even before he brutalized James Blake,” said Bandele. “That he was not fired after being found guilty of excessive force against James Blake, following those numerous other abuses of civilians, is a testament to the fact that the NYPD has a disciplinary system that prioritizes protecting abusive officers over public safety.”
More Charges
Frascatore is in the midst of a departmental trial on charges related to the 2015 incident. He is accused of not voiding an arrest in a timely fashion, not notifying a supervisor about the situation, and not knowing about his sister-in-law leaking video of him and Blake shaking hands during the investigation.
The officer’s lawyer, Peter Brill contends that his client acted appropriately and is being over-charged because of the publicity of the case. “It’s our position that he acted within his duties as a police officer, and the investigators may have been under undue pressure to charge minor misconduct due to the public nature of the incident,” said Brill.
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