A couple hours before Tyreek Hill racked up 130 receiving yards in the Miami Dolphins’ season opening win against the Jacksonville Jaguars, the wide receiver was handcuffed by officers as he tried to enter Hard Rock Stadium.
While he wasn’t arrested, the detainment of the star receiver over a traffic violation “deeply concerned” his agent Drew Rosenhaus. Dolphins defensive lineman Calais Campbell, who was also handcuffed when he attempted to deescalate the situation, said he saw what he believed to be “excessive force” from police.
But after the game, Hill pondered how much worse the situation could’ve been if his circumstances were different.
“What if I wasn’t Tyreek Hill?” he said. “It’s all across the world. You see it. I don’t want to bring race into it, but sometimes it gets kind of iffy when you do. What if I wasn’t Tyreek Hill? Lord knows what that guy or guys would have done.”
Video from fans entering Hard Rock Stadium appeared to show Hill getting struck by an officer and getting pinned down on the pavement.
Cops Randomly attack #TyreekHill while he was complying with their orders. #Dolphins #NFL pic.twitter.com/N8VG5fzcLt
— Bear In The Sun🐬🇺🇸 (@BearInTheSunn) September 8, 2024
They had Tyreek on the pavement😧 pic.twitter.com/8T7nkdEjCF
— King of Phinland🐬👑 (@KingOfPhinland) September 8, 2024
While Hill was “iffy” about bringing race into the conversation, his teammate Jevon Holland was not.
“Excessive force on a Black man, that’s not uncommon,” Holland said in the locker room, via Cameron Wolfe of NFL Network. “It’s a very common thing in America. So I think that needs to be addressed at a country-wide level. I don’t think that [expletive] is cool at all. It’s not uncommon for cops to do that type of [expletive], especially to Black men.”
On Sunday afternoon, Miami-Dade Police Department director Stephanie V. Daniels announced that one of the officers involved in the incident was being placed on administrative leave.
“I have no idea, for real,” Hill said when asked why he was placed in handcuffs. “I wasn’t disrespectful because my mom didn’t raise me that way. Didn’t cuss. Didn’t do none of that. So like I said, I’m still trying to figure it out, man.
“I want to be a cop one day. I’ve got a state trooper hat and all of that, so I have a lot of respect for cops, man. Everybody has bad apples in every situation. I want 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 also Miami-Dade.”
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