James Blake on the left, the man the NYPD claimed they meant to arrest on the right

James Blake on the left, the man the NYPD claimed they meant to arrest on the right

Everything about this story is off.

On September 9, the New York Police Department assaulted and arrested James Blake—the former No. 4-ranked tennis player in the world—outside of his midtown Manhattan hotel as he was headed to the U.S. Open.

At first, the NYPD claimed it was a case of mistaken identity, and that James Blake looked like a "twin" of the man they intended to arrest. Someone even leaked a photo of the man Blake was supposed to look just like. Now it turns out that "twin" has absolutely nothing to do with the case, either. This admission was tucked deep in a few stories about the case:



The team of officers, looking for suspects in a credit card fraud ring, were relying on a courier who identified Mr. Blake as one of the buyers, the police said. The officers also had an Instagram photo of someone believed to be involved. That person, who Mr. Bratton said looked like Mr. Blake’s “twin brother,” turned out to have no role in the scheme.

Who gave the them this photo of some other random dude off of Instagram? The courier?

Now this man's face is all over the internet, mostly mentioned with the words "suspect" and "theft."The NYPD now claims the company, GoButler, gave them the random Instagram photo of this man, but that still doesn't explain the self-serving reason they released it to the public.

What's crazy about all of this is that the entire case is supposed to be about identity fraud. Yet the NYPD continues to mangle the identities of innocent black men who had nothing at all to do with the case.

What's this all about? Keep reading for more.