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James Blake meets with Mayor de Blasio after wrongful arrest – Metro US

James Blake meets with Mayor de Blasio after wrongful arrest

James Blake meets with Mayor de Blasio after wrongful arrest
Maddie Meyer/Getty Images

James Blake stopped by City Hall on Monday afternoon to meet with Mayor Bill de Blasio weeks after he was wrongfully arrested by a police officer in front of a midtown Manhattan hotel.

Shortly before the meeting, de Blasio told reporters he looked forward to telling Blake about his administration’s successes with local policing so far.

RELATED: NYC officials renew calls to fire James Blake’s arresting officer

“I’m certainly going to let him know how much we are making fundamental reforms in the relationship between police and community,” the mayor said. “I’m going to let him know how confident I am, and Commissioner Bratton is, that this is going to make a huge impact.”

When asked by reporters if Blake was receiving special treatment, de Blasio admitted Blake — who has publicly called for his arresting officer James Frascatore to be fired — was a prominent person.

“But the bottom line here is the changes were already moving, and that’s what I want to explain to him, and certainly to all New Yorkers. We don’t want to see this kind of thing happen,” de Blasio said.

Video surveillance showed Frascatore tackle an unresisting Blake to the ground without any other officers as they searched for a suspect in a credit card fraud case.