Long Delays Cloud Police Department Disciplinary Trials
When the New York City police officer who tackled the former tennis star James Blake steps into a dim departmental trial room this week, Mr. Blake will have waited more than 700 days to see the officer answer for his actions since a civilian oversight board found that he used excessive force.
In the nearly two years that elapsed, Mr. Blake said he has canceled three plane tickets to New York because of trial delays and watched a plea deal he saw as soft fall apart for reasons that remain mysterious to many of the people involved. After the trial, Mr. Blake will wait again — likely for months — for the police commissioner to hand down a final ruling on the officer’s guilt and possible punishment. And in the end, details of the punishment could remain a secret.
The process, long and byzantine as it is, is the easiest path to holding an officer accountable for many victims of police misconduct. Overwhelmingly, they face bigger obstacles to pursuing a complaint than Mr. Blake, who was thrown to a Midtown sidewalk by Officer James Frascatore two years ago after he was misidentified as a suspect in a credit card fraud ring. . .