Miami Dolphins star wide receiver Tyreek Hill was pulled over in a traffic stop on Sunday week 1 of the NFL season, only hours before the Dolphins’ first game of the year, and just about a block from Hard Rock Stadium, where the Dolphins play.
Fans captured the incident involving at least three police officers on video, which went viral on social media. As those videos show, the traffic stop escalated with Hill handcuffed and facedown on the pavement. One officer, now placed on administrative leave pending an internal affairs investigation, had a knee on Hill’s back. Although he was handcuffed and detained, Hill was not arrested and released. Some cell phone footage is partially obstructed, but some on social media have said it appears that some of the officers are kicking or striking Hill on the ground.
After the incident, Hill, 30, played in the Dolphins game later that day, contributing 130 yards, catching seven passes, and scoring an 80-yard touchdown as his team beat the Jacksonville Jaguars 20-17 in Miami’s season opener. Hill celebrated his touchdown with a hands-in-handcuffs gesture.
Why was Tyreek Hill detained?
According to Miami police, Tyreek Hill was initially pulled over and then cited for speeding, reckless driving, and driving without a license, the AP reported. At a post-game press conference Sunday, Hill said he didn’t know why he was handcuffed, but officers told him he failed to respond to direct orders. “I wasn’t disrespectful because my mom didn’t raise me that way,” Hill told reporters. “Didn’t cuss. Didn’t do none of that. Like I said, I’m still trying to figure it out, man,” he said.
The police body cam footage was later released. After Hill gets pulled over, an officer approaches Hill’s car and knocks on the window. Hill rolls down the window and asks the officer to stop. According to CNN, the officer then asks Hill why he’s not wearing a seatbelt. Hill tells the officer to go ahead and give him a ticket because he’s running late, and he rolls the window back up. The officer orders him to keep his window down, and Hill complies.
At that point, another officer opens Hill’s car door and tries to force him from the vehicle. Hill is heard telling the officer he’ll exit the vehicle on his own. Once pulled out of the car, Hill is pushed to the ground as officers continue telling him he should have listened to them when they gave him orders. Hill warned the officers to be careful because he just had knee surgery. “Did you have surgery on your ears when we told you to put the window down?” an officer said.
In the body cam footage, one of the officers says he doesn’t realize Hill plays for the Dolphins, asking “Why is he acting up like that?”
“You know who that is right? That’s one of the Dolphins’ star players,” another answers. “Oh yeah? F**k,” the first officer replies.
Hill was “shellshocked” by the situation
Hill later told CNN he was “shellshocked” by the situation. “I’m embarrassed,” he said, adding, in part, “When the officer came up and knocked on my window, I let my window down, cooperated, gave them my I.D. Then I immediately let up my window, and then after that, I let back up my window, and then he came back to the window and was like, ‘Let your window down now, let your window down now’ and then I let it down.” Hill explained his slow response to the order to get out of the car as concern for his injury.
Hill had previously said he respects police officers, and even might like to be one after he retires from football, but he was concerned about how things might have turned out if he weren’t a famous football player. “Obviously, everybody has bad apples in every situation,” Hill continued, “so I want to be able to use this platform to figure out a way to flip this and make it a positive on both ends — on my end, and then also Miami-Dade — so that way we can team together and do something positive for the community, cause that’s what it’s all about,” Hill said.
In a statement, the Dolphins organization condemned the police interaction. “It is both maddening and heartbreaking to watch the very people we trust to protect our community use such unnecessary force and hostility towards these players, yet it is also a reminder that not every situation like this ends in peace, as we are grateful this one did,” the Dolphins said in part.
Hill’s teammates tried to intervene
Before Tyreek Hill was released, his teammates, defensive tackle Calais Campbell and tight end Jonnu Smith, noticed the incident on his way to the stadium, and pulled over to try and intervene in what he said seemed like excessive force. Campbell was also briefly handcuffed. Campbell later said he stopped to try and de-escalate the situation which he said appeared a “a bit extreme.” After Sunday’s game, Hill added, “I’m just glad that my teammates were there to support me in that situation because I felt alone.”
Campbell later told ESPN, “I told [the officers] I will stand where you want me to stand. You tell me how far I need to back up, and I’ll back up, but I’m not leaving the scene. This is my friend here. I’m here to support him. I’m not leaving.” Campbell added, “These situations can escalate quickly. We see it so many times in America where these things go completely bad. This is a big opportunity for us to use this platform to combat police brutality that happens.”
Hill’s legal history
Sunday was not Hill’s first encounter with the law. In college, Hill was charged with domestic assault and other charges involving his then-pregnant girlfriend, Crystal Espinal. Since then, Hill’s career has been clouded by several other assault allegations and other legal controversies.
In 2019, before Hill was traded from the Chiefs to the Dolphins, Kansas City law enforcement declined to press charges against Hill over additional domestic violence allegations involving Espinal and Hill and Espinal’s 3-year-old child. About a year before Miami police detained Hill on his way to Had Rock Stadium, he was also investigated on assault charges in Miami in a disagreement involving a marina employee. Miami-Dade police declined to press charges.
Referring to Hill’s traffic stop, Hill’s agent, Drew Rosenhaus told CNN that Hill may consider legal action. “The most important thing is that Tyreek is okay physically. Mentally, he was very distraught about what happened,” Rosenhaus also told ESPN. “Tyreek has told me over and over he’s a big supporter of police. He was telling the police there, ‘I want to be a police officer in the future.’ But this is crazy, I’ve never seen anything like this,” Rosenhaus said.