Footage shows Hill pulled from car to pavement

Marcel Louis-Jacques

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Marcel Louis-Jacques

ESPN
Xuan Thai

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Xuan Thai

ESPN Senior Writer

Sep 9, 2024, 08:57 PM ET

MIAMI — Newly released body camera footage of the detainment of Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill shows Miami-Dade police officers pulling the star player out of his car and forcing him to the pavement before putting him in handcuffs.

The footage shows Hill is originally pulled over for speeding while approaching Hard Rock Stadium on Sunday. It takes approximately one minute from when the officer leaves his motorcycle and starts walking toward Hill’s car to when Hill is forcibly pulled out.

Upon arrival, the officer knocks 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 the officer asking Hill to keep his window down. The incident escalates when Hill doesn’t comply.

Hill tells the officer, “Give me my ticket, bro, so I can go, I’m gonna be late. Do what you gotta do,” and rolls his darkly tinted window back up.

“Keep your window down,” the officer told him, again tapping on the glass. Hill can still be seen inside.

Hill rolled the window down slightly and said, “Don’t tell me what to do.” He put the window back up.

Hill told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Monday night that he rolled his window back up because of concern about drawing unwanted attention to himself.

“If I let my window down, people walking by, driving by, they’re going to notice that it’s me,” Hill said. “And they’re going to start taking pictures, and I didn’t want to create a scene at all. Like, I just really wanted to get the ticket and then go on about my way.”

The officer again told Hill to put his window back 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 asks Hill to exit his vehicle, Hill then says, “I’m gonna get out, I’m gonna get out.” As the officer opens door and removes Hill, the receiver says, “I’m getting out!” At that point, another officer grabs Hill by the back of the head and neck area and forces him to the pavement to put 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 tells Hill. “Not when you want, but when we tell you. You’re a little f—ing confused.”

Hill is escorted to the sidewalk and told to sit down, to which Hill replies that he recently had knee surgery and asks the officers to “hold on.” The same officer who pulled Hill out of his vehicle, who was not the closest officer to Hill, then rushes toward Hill, wraps his arms around his shoulders and forces him to the ground again, at one point putting his hands around Hill’s neck.

The officer expresses skepticism 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?”

There have been no reports of any recent surgery Hill might have had. But it’s not uncommon for players to have unannounced surgeries if they aren’t the type that will affect their statuses for the season.

Dolphins tight end Jonnu Smith witnessed the scene. The footage shows him parking his vehicle several feet away from Hill and rushing out of his car when Hill is forced to the ground. Officers immediately ask Smith to back up and provide identification, which he does.

Smith remains roughly 25 feet away from Hill throughout the footage and is ultimately given a citation.

Dolphins defensive lineman Calais Campbell arrives on the scene shortly after and is also told to leave. Campbell approaches the officers with his arms raised.

At one point, one of the responding officers seems to acknowledge Hill’s status as a professional athlete, although neither Hill nor Campbell admitted they were Dolphins players.

“You know who that is, right?” the officer asks. “One of the Dolphins’ star players.”

Campbell is ultimately detained while one officer keeps a seated Hill in place with a hand on his shoulder.

When Hill complains about being held in place, the officer forces 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 says. “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 complies with the officers’ orders throughout the footage. At least one officer attempts to reason with Hill and de-escalate the situation as bystanders film the incident from both the sidewalk and their vehicles.

“I’m just being a Black man, that’s it,” Hill calls out. “I’m just being Black in America.”

“We’re dark, too, brother,” one officer replies. “We’re people of color, too. Don’t play like that’s special.”

Hill is released after roughly 25 minutes, when Brooks and Hill’s agent, Drew Rosenhaus, arrive. 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 putting 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.”

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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 became 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 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’s statement 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.

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