Former tennis great James Blake was slammed to the ground, handcuffed and detained by five plainclothes city cops Wednesday outside his midtown hotel before heading out to the U.S. Open, Blake told the Daily News.Blake was standing outside of his hotel, waiting for his ride to the U.S. Open, when he was bodyslammed to the sidewalk, proned out and handcuffed.
The officers, who were all white, mistook Blake for a suspect in an identity theft ring operating around the midtown hotel.
Betcha they allege "furtive movement" as a justification for manhandling the wrong person, or some other such shit that the cops always like to trot out when they get caught being vicious.
From the NYPD:
“In regards to the alleged improper use of force, the Police Commissioner directed the internal affairs bureau to investigate.”Yeah, good luck with that. The NYPD buys this stuff by the drum:
Somehow, they'll never, ever care that their eternal string of "mistaken identities" in each case, lets an actual, real criminal go free. (Or at least get farther away.)
ReplyDeleteIn other words, they work very hard at covering the tracks of real criminals, so they can focus on the innocent. Like they're afraid of real criminals, or something.
Why do we have cops, again?
Let's say that Blake wasn't Blake, and that there was no mistaken identity, and that there actually had been a crime committed by a man who looks vaguely like Blake, who had just come out of the hotel. Since when do you arrest a criminal, and one accused of a non-violent crime at that, by body slamming him to the ground? How about a simple,
ReplyDelete"Mr X., you are surrounded by four armed plainclothes policemen and you are under arrest. Please come along quietly."
Oh right, that takes the fun out of police work. How silly of me to ask. Never mind.
Crankily yours,
The New York Crank