Update, 4:50 p.m.: Here’s a statement Blake released today.
Original post, 4:19 p.m.: On Thursday, NYPD commissioner Bill Bratton publicly apologized to former tennis star James Blake, who was thrown to the ground and briefly placed under arrest outside Manhattan’s Grand Hyatt on Wednesday in what appears to have been a case of mistaken identity. Today the NYPD released video of the incident:
Bratton has said he is concerned that the officers involved with Blake’s arrest did not notify superiors that they had detained an innocent person and about “the inappropriateness of the amount of force that was used” but that he did not think racial bias was a factor in the officers’ behavior. (Blake is black and the officer who tackled him, James Frascatore, is white.)
