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Marcel Louis-Jacques, ESPNSep 10, 2024, 09:26 PM ET
- Marcel Louis-Jacques joined ESPN in 2019 as a beat reporter covering the Buffalo Bills, before switching to the Miami Dolphins in 2021. The former Carolina Panthers beat writer for the Charlotte Observer won the APSE award for breaking news and the South Carolina Press Association award for enterprise writing in 2018.
MIAMI — Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill is calling for a Miami-Dade police officer to be fired following a now-viral incident Sunday in which Hill was pulled from his vehicle during a traffic stop.
Hill’s attorney, Julius Collins, released a statement on Hill’s behalf Tuesday night demanding the “immediate termination” of the “escalating officer” who was placed on administrative leave as a result of Sunday’s incident.
“Each action that a law enforcement official take is governed by standard operating procedures,” the statement read. “We are of the opinion that the officer’s use of force was excessive, escalating, and reckless. We are demanding that the officer be terminated effective immediately.”
The officer, who has since been identified as 27-year veteran Danny Torres, was one of several officers present when Hill was pulled over for speeding roughly three hours before the Dolphins’ season opener against the Jacksonville Jaguars. The police union that works with the Miami-Dade PD released a statement Monday afternoon saying Hill was “uncooperative” with the responding officers, leading to an escalation of the situation.
Body camera footage released Monday evening showed that after a brief verbal altercation with the officer who pulled him over, Hill was instructed to exit his vehicle but ultimately was forcibly removed from his car by Torres and “redirected” to the ground.
Torres then handcuffed Hill while kneeling on his back and forced him to the ground again after Hill was instructed to sit down on the sidewalk roughly one minute later. In their statement, Hill and Collins say Hill advised officers that he had recently undergone knee surgery, but Torres “ignored his statement and continued his escalation in his use of force.”
“The events that occurred on Sunday, September 8, 2024, are just a reminder of the realities of the many injustices that people of black and minority communities face at the hands of law enforcement,” the statement read. “While we are in no way accusing the officer of being racist, we are accusing the customs and practices of law enforcement from a historical standpoint of being discriminatory and oppressive to black and minority communities. We cannot ignore this fact and remain silent on the issue just because it’s a tough conversation.”
Dolphins players Jonnu Smith and Calais Campbell arrived on the scene shortly after Hill was detained; Smith was cited while Campbell, a former Walter Payton Man of the Year award winner, was briefly detained for what he said was a failure to comply.
Attorneys Ignacio Alvarez of ALGO Law Firm and Israel Reyes of The Reyes Law Firm, who are representing Torres, issued a statement Monday calling for their client’s “immediate reinstatement.” They also referred to the decision to place their client on leave as “premature,” although they “fully support” Miami-Dade PD director Stephanie Daniels’ call for a thorough review.
Neither Alvarez nor Reyes responded when asked if their statement was crafted before or after the body camera footage from the incident was made public Monday.
“We urge all parties to refrain from making public statements that may misrepresent our client’s actions and mislead the public about Mr. Hill’s detainment,” Alvarez said in the statement.
Their statement said Torres would not make any comment until after the investigation into the matter is finished; Alvarez and Reyes did not immediately respond to an inquiry as to whether Torres had any previous disciplinary actions, incidents or investigations on his record.
During an appearance Monday on “The Dan Le Batard Show,” Hill’s agent, Drew Rosenhaus, expressed his disgust for the officers’ treatment of his client.
“For me, personally, I believe the police officers that did that to Tyreek shouldn’t be in that position — they should be let go,” Rosenhaus said. “Look at the guy who kicked him — that guy should be fired. That’s out of control. The guy that jumped in and put him in a chokehold? There’s no place for a police officer to have a badge that operates like that, when Tyreek wasn’t being aggressive, or violent or fighting back in any capacity.
“That was horrendous how they treated him. They didn’t treat him like a human being.”
Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa said Tuesday that Hill had gathered a group of teammates together to discuss changing the experience into something positive for the community, but their ideas likely won’t be implemented until after the team’s game Thursday night against the Buffalo Bills.
Veteran left tackle Terron Armstead, a Dolphins team captain along with Hill and Tagovailoa, said the team will be ready for Thursday’s game, despite the short week and potential distractions.
“I think that’s the beauty of the sport,” he said. “You get a chance to escape real world issues for that time slot. I think there’s no better place in the world that Tyreek could’ve been following that but a locker room and a football game. That’s the beauty of that sport, that you get that time to escape and enter a world that is kind of a fantasy for us.”
