MIAMI — Newly released body camera footage of the detainment of Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill shows Miami Dade police officers pulled the star player out of his car and forced him to the pavement before placing him in handcuffs.
The footage shows Hill was originally pulled over for speeding while approaching Hard Rock Stadium on Sunday. It took approximately one minute from when the officer left his motorcycle and started walking toward Hill’s car to when Hill was forcefully pulled out.
Upon arrival, the officer knocked on Hill’s car window, prompting Hill to roll down the window, hand the officer his driver’s license and repeatedly tell the officer not to knock on his window. The footage also shows that the officer asked Hill to keep his window down. The incident escalated when Hill didn’t comply.
Hill told the officer, “Give me my ticket, bro, so I can go, I’m gonna be late. Do what you gotta do,” and rolled his window back up.
“Keep your window down,” the officer told him, tapping on the glass. The officer paused for about five seconds and looked around. He told Hill again to keep the window down or “I am going to get you out of the car. As a matter of fact, get out of the car.”
After the officer ultimately asked Hill to exit his vehicle, Hill then said, “I’m gonna get out, I’m gonna get out.” As the officer opened door and removed Hill, the receiver said, “I’m getting out!” At that point, another officer grabbed Hill by the back of the head and neck area and forced him to the pavement to place him in handcuffs.
“It just went from 0 to 60, man, from the moment that those guys pulled up behind me, knocked on my window, it went from 0 to 60 immediately,” Hill said Monday in an interview with NBC Nightly News.
“I was opening my door and I was going to get out, you know what I’m saying, but it felt like they was wanting me to move fast.”
Hill was able to call the Dolphins’ director of security, Drew Brooks, before he was pulled out of his car. The officer who forced Hill to the ground kept him in place with a knee to Hill’s back, telling Hill to “stop crying.”
“When we tell you to do something, you do it, you understand?” the officer told Hill. “Not when you want, but when we tell you. You’re a little f—ing confused.”
Hill was escorted to the sidewalk and told to sit down, to which Hill replied that he recently had knee surgery and asked the officers to “hold on.” The same officer who pulled Hill out of his vehicle, who was not the closest officer to Hill, then rushed toward Hill, wrapped his arms around his shoulders and forced him to the ground again, at one point placing his hands around Hill’s neck.
The officer was skeptical of Hill’s surgery.
“Oh really? What a coincidence,” he said to Hill. “Did you have surgery on your ears when we told you to put the window down?”
Dolphins tight end Jonnu Smith witnessed the scene. He parked his vehicle several feet away from Hill and rushed out of his car when he saw Hill being forced to the ground. Officers immediately asked Smith to back up and provide identification, which he did.
Smith remained roughly 25 feet away from Hill throughout the footage and was ultimately given a citation.
Dolphins defensive lineman Calais Campbell arrived on the scene shortly after and was also told to leave. Campbell approached the officers with his arms raised.
At one point, one of the responding officers seemed to acknowledge who Hill was, although neither Hill nor Campbell admitted they were Dolphins players.
“You know who that is, right?” the officer asked. “One of the Dolphins’ star players.”
Campbell was ultimately detained while one officer kept a seated Hill in place with a hand to his shoulder.
When Hill complained about being held in place, the officer forced him to the ground before allowing him to sit back up.
“I’ll tell you like this — your job is to serve and protect, right?” Hill said. “You’re doing a horrible job of protecting right now. I told you, I’m not going to run. … That’s only going to make matters worse.”
Hill verbally complied with the officers’ orders throughout the footage. At least one officer attempted to reason with Hill and de-escalate the situation as bystanders filmed the incident from both the sidewalk and their vehicles.
“I’m just being a Black man, that’s it,” Hill called out. “I’m just being Black in America.”
“We’re dark, too, brother,” one officer replied. “We’re people of color, too. Don’t play like that’s special.”
Hill was released after roughly 25 minutes, when Brooks and Hill’s agent, Drew Rosenhaus, arrived. The audio cuts out multiple times, but in one angle, Hill is heard telling officers he would “see y’all in court” before reentering his vehicle.
“If I wasn’t Tyreek Hill, Lord knows, I probably would have been, like, worst-case scenario, I would have been shot or would have been locked up” and “put behind bars, you know, for a simple speeding ticket,” Hill told NBC News.
Hill caught 7 passes for 130 yards and an 80-yard touchdown in the Dolphins win Sunday over the Jacksonville Jaguars.
After scoring, he referenced that morning’s incident by placing his hands behind his back and allowing teammate Jaylen Waddle to detain him as they returned to the team’s sideline.
Hill told NBC News, “you learn to laugh and have a good time” in regard to the celebration.
On Monday night, the Dolphins released a statement, saying the team was “saddened by the overly aggressive and violent conduct directed towards Tyreek Hill, Calais Campbell and Jonnu Smith,” adding that “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. ‘What if I wasn’t Tyreek Hill?’ is a question that will carry with resounding impact.”
The statement continued by saying the franchise is “proud to have a strong and positive relationship with the Miami-Dade Police Department and other law enforcement agencies and recognize that the vast majority of officers do serve the community with the utmost character and desire to protect all citizens. However, as is on full display in the videos released tonight, there are some officers who mistake their responsibility and commitment to serve with misguided power. While we commend MDPD for taking the right and necessary action to quickly release this footage, we also urge them to take equally swift and strong action against the officers who engaged in such despicable behavior.
“We will stand beside Tyreek and our players as they work to use their platform and this situation to make a positive impact in our community. We have always believed that the game of football holds a unique power to bring people together, and we remain hopeful that through the collective work of the players, organization and our community partners, we can create lasting change.”
Earlier in the day, the South Florida Police Benevolent Association also released a statement — before the body camera footage went public — saying Hill was “uncooperative” with officers.
“Before the Dolphins game yesterday, an incident occurred where Tyreek Hill was placed in handcuffs before being released. First, to be clear, at no time was he ever under arrest. He was briefly detained for officer safety, after driving in a manner in which he was putting himself and others in great danger,” Steadman Stahl, the president of the South Florida Police Benevolent Association, said in a statement.
“Upon being stopped, Mr. Hill was not immediately cooperative with the officers on scene who, pursuant to policy and for their immediate safety, placed Mr. Hill in handcuffs. Mr. Hill, still uncooperative, refused to sit on the ground and was therefore redirected to the ground,” Stahl added.
Stahl told the Andy Slater Show that Hill “escalated” the situation and it would have gone by faster if Hill had complied.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
