A few hours ago, Miami-Dade police released the video of the arrest of Miami Dolphins player Tyreek Hill last Sunday and the team condemned the violence and aggressiveness with which he was arrested and handcuffed.
The video, recorded with cameras worn by officers on their uniforms, shows how the altercation between Miami-Dade County police and Hill quickly escalated.
In the beginning, two officers are seen chasing Hill after he apparently passed them at high speed on the road leading to Hard Rock Stadium, home of the Dolphins. The incident happened before his team’s debut in the first week of the NFL season.
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The officers activated their lights and forced Hill to stop his vehicle. One of them knocked on the driver’s window and asked him to roll it down, which Hill eventually did in order to hand over his driver’s license.
An argument ensued between the officer and Hill. At one point, Hill told the officer to give him the appropriate ticket and let him go because he was going to be late, as he began to roll up the window of his car.
“ Keep your window down,” the officer then told him, knocking on the glass. Hill then cracked the window open and said, “ Don’t tell me what to do,” before rolling it back up.
The officer then ordered him to get out and told him: “ I’m going to get you out of the car. In fact, get out of the car .” The officer, assisted by others, is then seen forcibly removing the player from the vehicle, placing his arms behind his back, and placing him face down on the ground while handcuffing him.
At that moment, one of the officers can be seen with his knee in the middle of the player’s back. ” If we tell you to do something, do it,” he told him.
To this, Hill responds: “ Take me to jail, bro, do what you have to do .” The officers tell him yes, they will take him to jail, to which the player replies “ You’re crazy .”
The officers then picked Hill up and carried him to the sidewalk. One officer asked him to sit on the curb, but when Hill refused and informed the officer that he had undergone knee surgery, another officer stood behind him and forced him to sit down putting his arm around his chest.
After the video was made public, Hill said in an interview on CNN that he was still in shock over being detained by police.
“I was in shock. It was crazy because it all happened so fast. For me, it all happened so fast that I couldn’t really take in everything that was happening,” Hill said during the interview on CNN, her first since the new images were released.
The incident has reignited debate over police violence against African Americans in the US. Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International have repeatedly accused local police forces of disproportionately using violence against that community.
In recent years, the deaths of several African Americans at the hands of the police have shocked the United States and sparked protests and even riots, such as the death of George Floyd in 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and of Michael Brown in 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri.
Miami Dolphins condemned the police’s attitude
The NFL team spoke out against the aggressive and violent attitude of the officers who arrested Tyreek Hill and his teammates Calais Campbell and Jonnu Smith, who shared the same fate when they tried to help him.
“ We are saddened by the extremely aggressive and violent attitude directed toward Tyreek Hill, Calais Campbell, and Jonnu Smith by police officers prior to yesterday’s game. It is heartbreaking to see the very people we rely on to protect our community use such unnecessary force toward these players,” the team wrote in the first part of the statement shared by the team on its social media.
In its letter, the Miami Dolphins highlighted the question of what would have happened if the detainee had not been a public figure.
“What if it wasn’t Tyreek Hill?’ is a question that will have a resounding impact. We are proud to have a good relationship with the Police Department, but as shown in the videos, there are officers who confuse duty and commitment to serve with misguided power,” the team said.
Finally, the team urged authorities to take strong action against the officers involved in the arrest.
“While we praised the MDPD for taking the correct and crucial step to quickly release these videos, we also urge them to take swift and strong action against the officers who engaged in such despicable behavior. In the meantime, we will stand by Tyreek and our players,” the statement concluded.
