“I don’t think he deserves to have a badge,” former tennis star James Blake said of the New York City cop who wrongly tackled and handcuffed him on Wednesday. “I hope he can never do that again under the shield of the New York Police Department.”

The plainclothes officer, James Frascatore, was placed on desk duty after mistaking Blake for a credit card fraud suspect. “I know they put him on modified assignment, which is a good first step, but I do think there needs to be more actions taken,” Blake said in a sit-down interview with reporters on Saturday.

Frascatore was the subject of a WNYC investigation last year that revealed an extensive history of civilian complaints filed against him. During one seven month period, five complaints were filed against Frascatore—more compaints than 90 percent of active officers receive in their entire careers, WNYC reported.

“It’s not his first brush with a civilian complaint. I don’t think this is his first time doing this. I don’t think this is one error in judgment. I think it’s a pattern and it needs to be corrected,” Blake said on Saturday. “I hope he can never do that to anyone else and get away with it.

Blake was born in Yonkers and raised in Connecticut. He says he has the “utmost respect” for the NYPD: “I would say 95 percent or greater are doing their job correctly, and doing things the right way and I applaud them. I think they should be considered heroes. But I don’t think the person who did this to me belongs in the same sentence as them. I don’t think he deserves to be on the force.”

Earlier this week, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Commissioner Bill Bratton apologized to Blake on behalf of the NYPD, a gesture which, in a statement on Friday, Blake said he appreciated. “But extending courtesy to a public figure mistreated by the police is not enough,” the statement read.

(The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association defended Frascatore’s actions in a statement that said the arrest “under fluid circumstances where the subject might have fled, and the officer did a professional job of bringing the individual to the ground.”)

“I’m sure this isn’t the first time police brutality has happened and I’m sure it’s not the last time,” Blake said Saturday. “So I want them to apologize to the people that this happens to that don’t have the same voice that I have.”


Photo credit: AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.