NYPD Officer Who Allegedly Tackled Former Tennis Pro No Stranger to CCRB

NYPD Officer James Frascatore may be the victim of mistaken identity himself.

Former tennis star James Blake has even more to say about his violent arrest.

Blake’s lawyer, Kevin Marino, said it took nearly two days of steady pressure, including preparing Freedom of Information Act requests, before the Police Department released a hotel surveillance video showing Blake being pulled to the ground. Jame Frascatore, the officer seen in the video, has been stripped of his gun and badge and placed on modified assignment pending the IAB investigation, NYPD Commissioner William Bratton said in a news conference on Thursday.

Messages left at a number listed for him and with his police union weren’t immediately returned.

As CBS2’s Jessica Schneider reported, Blake is scheduled to meet with Mayor Bill de Blasio and police Commissioner Bill Bratton to discuss his concerns, and he said he has not ruled out a lawsuit.

Reyes said he “completely disagreed” with that assessment, pointing out that Frascatore may have a problem with the city representing him in the Luckey case at the same time the mayor and the top cop have apologized to Blake about the cop’s actions and will likely not defend him in any litigation should Blake file a lawsuit.

But after he was hurt in a vehicle accident, doctors told him to stop playing baseball, said a childhood friend, speaking on the condition of anonymity, so he pursued a backup career as a police officer. Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said a courier making a delivery mistakenly identified Blake as a suspect who he had delivered to in the past.

Blake said that was false.

“I don’t think it’s too much to ask”, he added.

Determining what discipline, if any, Frascatore could receive won’t happen anytime soon. If Frascatore chooses to fight those charges, he would do so in a departmental trial in which he could face such punishments as a loss of vacation days and performance monitoring.

Blake said he did not think the incident was about race, but about excessive use of force by police.

A police spokesman declined to comment on Blake’s remarks.