September 2015: Former tennis star James Blake, in town for the U.S. Open, is standing nonchalantly outside Manhattan’s Grand Hyatt Hotel when hulking plainclothes police officer James Frascatore rushes him, manhandles him to the ground, cuffs him and hauls him off for booking.
What? James Riley Blake, once ranked number four in the world who’s contributed so much to Bridgeport area youth tennis? Then we got the real story.
Blake, who is black, had been mistakenly identified as a suspect in a credit card caper. It was another reminder of law enforcement’s tone-deafness to skin tone.
I collaborated on a book with James Blake’s mother Betty, a poignant memoir detailing the bonds of a bi-racial family, emphasis of academics over athletics and steering children on a path to success. James Blake was accepted into Harvard, then advanced his tennis skills as the top ranked American roughly 13 years ago.
News outlets have sought Blake’s perspective in a country pulled apart by the knee of a white cop suffocating a black man over a dubious $20 counterfeit bill, as complicit cops watched.
From the Associated Press:
“I went to bed very sad and very deflated, seeing this over and over again,” Blake said Tuesday from his home in San Diego. “I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t stop my mind from racing, thinking about the events that took place there, the events that took place with me in 2015. …
“It saddens me to see that kind of policing is still going on, that kind of brutality, particularly how often it is aimed at the black and brown community.”
Blake said the 2015 episode transformed him into an “accidental activist.” He began using his celebrity to speak more openly about racism and police brutality.
Voting is one way forward, he said, including in local elections. He supports peaceful protest, and said it’s possible no arrest in the Floyd case would have been made without the recent demonstrations in Minneapolis and elsewhere.
He also favors police reform, including higher pay, better training and independent bodies to investigate wrongdoing by officers. As punishment in the Blake case, the policeman who tackled him was docked five vacation days.
“I don’t think someone like that should have a badge,” Blake said.
Full story here.
