Former U.S. tennis star James Blake is the farthest thing from a criminal. That didn't stop New York police officers from treating him like one.
Blake said he was tackled, thrown to the ground, handcuffed and detained by five plain-clothes police officers outside his midtown hotel in New York, according to the New York Daily News.
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Blake, who reached as high as No. 4 in the world during his tennis career, was waiting for a car to take him to the U.S. Open, where he was to make corporate appearances for Time-Warner Cable.
The officers, all Caucasian, mistook Blake for a suspect in an identity theft ring operation around the Grand Hyatt Hotel.
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"It was definitely scary and definitely crazy," said Blake, who retired after the 2013 U.S. Open. He said he suffered a cut to his left elbow and bruises to his left leg.
Blake, who attended Harvard before turning pro, is recognized for his charity and community-centered work and recently announced he was running the New York Marathon to raise money for cancer research, the Daily News added.
The Daily News asked Blake is he felt he was the victim of racial profiling.
"I don't know if it's as simple as that.," he answered. "To me, it's as simple as unnecessary police force, no matter what my race is. 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.
"You'd think they could say, 'Hey, we want to talk to you. We are looking into something.' I was just standing there. I wasn't running. It's not even close [to being OK]. It's blatantly unnecessary. You would think at some point they would get the memo that this isn't OK, but it seems that there's no stopping it."
A man in a T-shirt and shorts charged at him, picked him up and threw him to the sidewalk, yelling at Blake to roll over and, "Don't say a word."
Blake said he responded, "I'm going to do whatever you say. I'm going to cooperate. But do you mind if I ask what this is all about?"
The officer said Blake was in "safe hands."
"I didn't feel very safe," Blake said.
After the five officers surrounded Blake, he asked them to locate his driver's license in his front pocket and his U.S. Open credential in his back pocket.
After being handcuffed for 15 minutes, Blake said he was released, and the last of the officers to arrive apologized for the mistaken identity. The officer who tackled him didn't speak to him once the error was revealed.
"I have resources to get to the bottom of this. I have a voice," Blake said. "But what about someone who doesn't have those resources and doesn't have a voice?
The real problem is that I was tackled for no reason and that happens to a lot of people who don't have a media outlet to voice that to."
Blake wants an apology from NYPD and to find out whether anything will happen to the officers involved.
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