Black former tennis star James Blake was mistakenly slammed to the ground and handcuffed Wednesday outside his hotel in New York by five, white police officers who thought he was a suspect in a identity theft ring, the New York Daily News reported.
Blake was headed to the U.S. Open and to make corporate appearances for Time-Warner cable, according to the report.
Police tackled Blake to the ground. Blake had a cut on his left elbow and bruises on his left leg.
Blake was previously ranked No. 4 in the world for tennis, according to the newspaper.
Blake told the newspaper that he was told two people had identified him as someone who had been involved in an identity-theft operation in the area.
Blake was handcuffed for about 15 minutes before an officer apologized and said that they had the wrong person.
“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,” Blake told the Daily News.
