Questions on the Blake Assault - The New York Times

By The Editorial Board, www.nytimes.comView OriginalSeptember 15th, 2015



Yes, they can start by firing him.



James Frascatore, the New York City police officer who jumped and assaulted an innocent man, James Blake, in Manhattan last Wednesday, has disgraced the department. Commissioner William Bratton and Mayor Bill de Blasio should make an example of him. They should make it clear that his unprovoked aggression — caught by a security camera, so there is no doubt about what he did — reflects everything that causes people to distrust and hate the N.Y.P.D. The officer’s further transgressions — not identifying himself to Mr. Blake, not apologizing, failing to void the arrest in follow-up paperwork — speak to an appalling lack of judgment by someone unfit for the job.



The mayor and Mr. Bratton need to acknowledge all this, and they should explain a few other things.



Like: Why shouldn’t Officer Frascatore be arrested for assault? Why was he still loose on the street despite his long history of excessive-force complaints, first reported by WNYC, including punching a driver in the mouth (after stopping him for a broken taillight) and another man in the stomach (while calling him a racial slur)? That those victims were both black and Mr. Blake, is biracial deserves attention. Why is no action taken when multiple complaints are filed with the Civilian Complaint Review Board?



After the death of Eric Garner on Staten Island at the hands of the police in July 2014, Mr. Bratton promised to retrain all of his officers in professional, nonlethal arrest procedures. How could Officer Frascatore not have gotten the message?



Mr. Bratton fiercely defends his department’s aggressive policing of small infractions, so that “quality of life” in the city is preserved. But “quality of life” should also mean the freedom to stand on the sidewalk without worrying that a plainclothes officer will attack you.



There is a public job, too, for the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, which said in a statement that Officer Frascatore’s assignment to desk duty had been “premature and unwarranted.” What will it take for the union boss Patrick Lynch to stop reflexively defending excessive force and admit that Officer Frascatore and Daniel Pantaleo, the officer who led the group tackle that smothered the life out of Mr. Garner, reflect a larger problem?



Mr. Blake, a big name in pro tennis, has lots of media attention and is willing to use it, for which the city should be grateful. Too many people who should know better have been trying to derail the debate over police misconduct.



Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Raymond Kelly, a former police commissioner, have lately been making self-serving attacks on Mr. de Blasio and his Constitution-based approach to law enforcement. Mr. Kelly, flacking his new memoir, has argued for a return to the lawless “stop and frisk” tactic that flourished on his watch, on the grounds that violating the rights of hundreds of thousands of innocent people is smart policing.



New Yorkers deserve policing carried out with “Courtesy, professionalism, respect,” painted on the sides of patrol cars. Officers Frascatore and Pantaleo make those words a farce.



Correction: September 16, 2015

An editorial about the police attack on James Blake misidentified Raymond Kelly, the former New York City police commissioner. He served under Mayors David Dinkins and Michael Bloomberg, not Rudolph Giuliani.





Questions on the Blake Assault - The New York Times