The question that Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill raised Sunday evening, hours after his face was planted on a Miami street and the knee of a Miami-Dade police officer was planted in his back, continues to echo.
“What if I wasn’t Tyreek Hill?” the five-time All-Pro wide receiver asked.
No doubt, Hill viewed himself as lucky. He left with nothing more than perhaps a few bruises and scrapes after yet another display of excessive force by law enforcement against a Black person. He played in Sunday’s 20-17 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars, and he’ll play again Thursday at Hard Rock Stadium against the Buffalo Bills.
It’s hard to fathom why police brutality against people of color keeps occurring. If it hadn’t happened to Hill, who was pulled from his car to the ground after being stopped for speeding, we may not have ever known it took place. If he weren’t Tyreek Hill, with teammates, an agent and team security coming to his aid, he might have wound up in a jail, a hospital — or in a morgue.
That was Hill’s point. But he also forgot something important during Sunday’s incident near Hard Rock Stadium: That in America, people of color have no margin for error when interacting with police officers. Being a high-profile Black athlete is no different.
This is the land where a cop knelt on a Black man’s neck in the street for more than 9 minutes, killing him, for passing a counterfeit bill. This is the land where a Black woman was shot and killed in her home after she called 911 for help. What would stop them from blowing away a Black man who refuses to keep his tinted window down?
Miami-Dade police on Monday released body cam footage from the traffic stop. Hill was pulled over by a police officer on a motorcycle for driving an estimated 60 mph in a 40 mph zone, and the scene quickly turned ugly.
One officer — seemingly set off by Hill’s annoyance at being pulled over and his refusal to keep his window down — dragged him out of his car by his head, forced him to the ground while threatening him and then placed him in handcuffs. After moving Hill out of the street and onto the sidewalk, a cop used a chokehold to force Hill to his knees.
An officer on the scene has been placed on administrative duty. Hill has called for the firing of the offending officers. Severe punishment is certainly warranted. Their actions were nothing short of an abuse of power. Rather than work to defuse the situation, the cops seemed hellbent on teaching Hill, who never threatened them, a lesson in respect and submission.
The Dolphins called the officers’ actions “maddening and heartbreaking,” and “overly aggressive and violent” in a statement released Monday.
— Miami Dolphins (@MiamiDolphins) September 10, 2024
Getting stopped while running late to work is frustrating. Hill’s aversion to being recognized and potentially filmed by passers-by is also understandable. But the quickest way to arrive at the stadium without incident would have been to remember that Black people must always remain above reproach in these scenarios.
For generations, Black parents have instructed their children on how to conduct themselves when stopped by the police. Window down. License and registration. Hands in full view. “Yes, sir. No, sir.” Cop an attitude? You better not.
Why couldn’t Hill remember this in the moment? He probably has asked himself that very question since Sunday.
Hill said after Sunday’s game that he wants “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 we can do something positive for the community.”
Wednesday, he took it a step further by acknowledging his faults in the incident.
“My whole life is all about accountability, like how can I get better?” he said to reporters. “I have family members who are cops and we’ve had conversations. Yes, I will say I could’ve been better. I could have let down my window in that instant. But the thing about me is, man, I don’t want attention, I don’t want to be cameras out, phones on me in that moment.
“But at the end of the day, I’m human and I’ve got to follow rules and do what everyone else would do. Now, does that give them the right to 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 different.”
Body-cam footage from Tyreek Hill’s detainment prior to the Dolphins vs. Jaguars game this past Sunday has surfaced.
via @AndySlaterpic.twitter.com/ClTzhzUMEh
— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) September 9, 2024
It’s encouraging that Hill was able to admit where he was wrong, and that he spoke with family members who work in law enforcement for greater understanding on how he should have responded. But nothing can justify the actions of the officers who forced him into submission.
Hill deserved to have been treated like a human being rather than being dragged out of his car like a dog. Dolphins teammates Calais Campbell and Jonnu Smith soon arrived on the scene and tried to de-escalate the situation. One police officer aggressively threatened them, too, and placed Campbell in handcuffs. Campbell, by the way, won the NFL’s Walter Payton Man of the Year Award in 2019 and the NFLPA’s Alan Page Community Award in 2024.
Eventually cooler heads prevailed and Hill and Campbell were permitted to leave and play in Sunday’s game. Hill had seven receptions for 130 yards and a touchdown in Miami’s win. He celebrated his touchdown by mimicking being handcuffed.
Hill learned the hard way that, fair or not, there’s no margin for error for Black people during encounters with the police. Although unfortunate, Hill’s incident reminded us that police brutality remains an ongoing problem. Perhaps his experience can help others who both look up to him — and look like him — avoid a repeat of what happened Sunday.
(Photo: Rich Storry / Getty Images)
