*The police officer who tackled former pro tennis star James Blake was penalized all of five lost vacation days — half of that recommended by an independent oversight board, according to the New York Daily News.
Officer James Frascatore was given the five-day “punishment” by Police Commissioner James O’Neill in February, sources told The News. The decision came five months after Frascatore was found guilty of excessive force following a departmental trial and two years, nine months after the incident.
Lawyers for the CCRB had recommended he lose 10 vacation days for the Sept. 9, 2015 encounter outside a hotel on E. 42nd St. near Lexington Ave. Frascatore was on a stakeout and mistook Blake for a credit card scammer.
Blake found that penalty woefully inadequate, saying he wanted the cop fired.
“Losing five vacation days for excessive force is a woefully inadequate penalty,” Blake’s lawyer Kevin Marino told The News. “Far from serving as a deterrent, a trivial penalty of that type would seem to be encouraging those inclined toward excessive force to go right on doing it.”
The NYPD did not disclose the decision in the excessive force case publicly because of a policy to withhold disciplinary outcomes, citing Section 50-a of the state Civil Rights Law. The law requires personnel records to be confidential, but critics have said the department is interpreting the law too broadly.
“He used violence first,” CCRB lawyer Jonathan Fogel said at the trial In September. “He used no words or warning, slamming him to the ground like a linebacker in NFL football.”
Frascatore is currently in the midst of a departmental trial on charge indirectly related to the Blake incident, and could face additional discipline for those charges.
He is accused of knowing that his sister-in-law leaked a video of him and Blake shaking hands to a media outlet during the investigation, and searching for security footage that would help clear himself while on desk duty.
He is also accused of not voiding an arrest in a timely manner and failing to notify a supervisor of the incident.
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