New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said Thursday that “race has nothing at all to do” with an incident the day before in which five white police officers mistakenly tackled and handcuffed black ex-tennis pro James Blake outside his hotel.
Bratton told CNN’s “New Day” that an investigation had been launched, but he defended the officers, saying a suspect in an identity theft ring looked “like the twin brother” of Blake.
Blake, who is black, had a cut on his left elbow and bruises on his left leg following the incident. He was headed to the U.S. Open and to make corporate appearances for Time-Warner cable. He was previously ranked No. 4 in the world for tennis.
“If you look at the photograph of the suspect, it looks like the twin brother of Mr. Blake. So let’s put that nonsense to rest right now,” Bratton told CNN. “Sorry, race has nothing at all to do with this.”
Video from the incident led to one officer to be placed on desk duty, Bratton told the news channel.
And we have no photo of the suspect to look at because why?
I have absolutely no problem believing Blake may have looked like the suspect, particularly in a cross-racial identification (in those cases Serena Williams might as well look like Vanessa Williams). That’s fine. I have no problem with the police stopping him and questioning him if they thought he looked like the suspect. What I have a problem with and what everyone should object to is the absolutely unnecessary use of force against an unarmed man who was, at that point, merely a suspect. And I have no problem believing that wouldn’t have happened to a white guy accused of the same crime.
Possibly because “suspect” means he hasn’t been convicted of anything, and pasting his picture all over the paper would be a huge honking privacy violation.
To be fair, they all look alike, right? I’m sure Donald Trump will weigh in, telling us as much.
And Bratton thinks that i should believe anything an upper echelon police officer says? Not likely. The first reaction of almost all police is to man up for the officer in the encounter. We the public are always at fault and must obey their every whim. If we object we are resisting their order and arrested. We are in a police state. Make no doubt of it.