In the aftermath of his horrifying encounter with Miami-Dade police officers, Tyreek Hill is taking action and speaking out against the physical abuse he suffered during a traffic stop.
Police pulled over Hill and handcuffed him during a traffic stop on his way to the Miami Dolphins' season opener. Teammates Calais Campbell and Jonnu Smith were there to support their teammate, who was eventually released.
Footage from one of the officer's body cameras shows police pulling Hill out of his car after rolling his window back up and lowering it partly. Looking back on it now, Hill wishes he had acted differently.
“I could have let down my window in that instant,” he said. “The thing about me is, man, I don’t want attention. I don’t want to be cameras out, phones on you in that moment. At the end of the day, I'm human.
“I gotta follow rules. I gotta do what everyone else would do. Now, does that give them the right to nearly beat the dog out of me? Absolutely not. But, at the end of the day, I wish I could go back and do things a bit differently.”
Tyreek Hill speaks out on police incident prior to Dolphins' Week 1 game
While Hill indeed could have been more compliant with the officers, the fact that cops use force at the slightest challenge to their authority is illustrative of the whole problem.
Hill's collected behavior did not give them any justification to forcibly remove him from the car before he got the chance to do it himself, shove him down to the ground and place him in handcuffs.
Police forcing people to strictly obey orders by the threat of violence goes directly against the freedom that many Americans boast that the country has — and that the NFL always celebrates. It's easy for Hill to say he wishes he acted differently now, but his interactions with the cops were not out of line. He called for a change to end situations like these — and rightfully so.
The Fritz Pollard Alliance Foundation, a nonprofit whose initiative is to promote equality and diversity in the NFL, released a statement condemning the officers involved in the incident.
“These three men experienced what scores of black and brown people across the country have experienced when interacting with police and what scores more fear. Thankfully, on this occasion, nobody was seriously hurt. Were Hill, Campbell, and Smith not ultimately recognized as NFL players, the outcome may have been dire,” the statement reads in part.
Tyreek Hill and the Dolphins hope that the officers receive consequences and that they can put this situation behind them soon. After starting the season with a comeback win over the Jacksonville Jaguars, they’ll host the Buffalo Bills in Week 2.
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