The scene played out like many we’ve seen over the years.
A Black man pulled over by the police for a seemingly trivial offense is surrounded by multiple officers, dragged to the ground, a knee placed in his back, and handcuffed.
In some cases, the incident is escalated to the point where the Black man is either choked, tased, or, God forbid, shot. And in even rarer cases, the Black man is someone the public has seen on their television screens countless times.
Which was the case on Sunday when Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill was handcuffed and detained by Miami-Dade police, and received citations for careless driving and failing to wear a seat belt while driving to the team’s home game at Hard Rock Stadium. Body camera video of the incident showed Hill being hostile with the officer after being asked for his ID and being told to keep his window down, and later being snatched out of his car and forced face-first onto the road as four officers hovered over him, one with his knee in Hill’s back as he handcuffed him.
While Hill walked away from the detainment with just two citations, the occurrence once again highlights the issue of escalation in policing in America and how Black motorists in particular are at risk from it.
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When it comes to race and policing, there’s a natural inclination in this country to put your fingers in your ear and loudly yell “la la la la la.” “And so are white people. So are white people. What a terrible question to ask,” then-president Donald Trump said when asked in 2020 by CBS about Black Americans being killed by police.
Hill seemed to want to avoid talking about the role race played in his detainment when he spoke with reporters after Sunday’s game.
“It’s hard. I don’t want to bring race into it, but sometimes it gets kind of iffy when you do,” he said. “What if I wasn’t Tyreek Hill? Lord knows what those guys would have done.”
Hill went on to add that his uncle used to always tell him that, when you come into contact with police, “put your hands on the steering wheel and just listen.” Never mind that this is part of “the Talk” that many Black parents have with their kids in how to navigate racism in this country, including when it comes to the police. If Hill was white, his uncle likely never would have had that conversation with him. A 2021 Stanford University study found that, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, white parents were less likely to talk to their children about race (“Everyone is treated equal. The color of your skin doesn’t matter,” one parent responded).
Nationwide, we have countless examples of police officers responding to nonviolent, trivial matters and escalating them to violence or death. Floyd was accused of passing a counterfeit $20 bill before officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes. Philando Castile was pulled over by St. Anthony, Minnesota, police for a broken taillight before he was fatally shot. Sandra Bland was stopped for failure to signal a lane change by a Texas police officer, who eventually arrested her after he ordered her out out of her car when she did not put out her cigarette. Bland was found hanged in a jail cell three days later. Police ruled her death a suicide.
It’s no different in Florida. In June 2020, a Miami-Dade officer was captured on video slapping a Black woman in the face at Miami International Airport after the woman argued with airport staff. As it pertains to Hill’s case, a 2014 American Civil Liberties Union study found that Black motorists in Florida were stopped and ticketed for seat belt infractions at nearly double the rate of white motorists.
These sorts of pretextual stops, when officers pull over drivers for minor offenses in hopes of finding a more serious crime, tend to target Black motorists. A study found that Black and Latino drivers are more likely than white motorists to get stopped and searched by police. As the cases of Castile and Bland show, there’s a chance that these stops can turn into fatal encounters.
“That’s got to get handled,” Dolphins safety Jevon Holland said after Sunday’s game. “Excessive force on a Black man, that’s not uncommon. It’s a very common thing in America. That needs to be addressed on a countrywide level.”
And part of the issue when it comes to race and policing is the accountability of those whose job it is to protect American citizens. There’s no denying that police have a difficult job, but just like everyone else in this country, they shouldn’t be immune from criticism or consequences. Police can be protected by qualified immunity, which shields them from lawsuits, and some departments have fought to hide police misconduct records from becoming public.
Not to mention, police lie a lot. The original statement released by the Minneapolis Police Department said that Floyd suffered from “medical distress” before he died, neglecting to mention Chauvin kneeling on his neck. Despite video evidence seemingly showing Hill complying with the officers and not resisting while being handcuffed, the union representing Miami-Dade police officers released a statement on Monday that said that “at no time was [Hill] ever under arrest,” that Hill “was not immediately cooperative” and that after refusing to sit down, Hill was “redirected to the ground.” There was zero mention of a knee being placed in his back.
While the Miami-Dade Police Department placed one of the officers on administrative duties for now, Steadman Stahl, the president of the South Florida Police Benevolent Association, told a local radio show that “If Mr. Hill would have just complied, it would have just sped the process up. He chose not to, he chose to escalate the situation and turn it into something bigger than the Dolphins’ win itself.”
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Escalate is the key word there. Hill was dismissive of the officers, instructing them to hurry up and give him a ticket and to stop knocking on his car window. He has a checkered history, including being cited in July 2023 by Miami-Dade police for striking a South Florida marina employee. But history has shown that police aren’t always the best at de-escalating a situation, particularly when Black people are involved. Hill’s teammate Calais Campbell, the 2019 winner of the NFL’s Walter Payton Man of the Year Award, was handcuffed for stopping to support Hill on the side of the road. (Campbell told First Take on Monday morning that he witnessed the officers kick Hill.)
Should Hill have been speeding? No. Should he have been wearing a seat belt? Absolutely. But in a world where the deaths of a Castile or Bland can happen after a police stop, there’s no reason Hill’s situation needed to rise to the level of detainment and being treated as if he were a suspect in a violent crime. The fact that one of the officers was removed from duty illustrates how wrongly this all played out.
“That should tell you everything you need to know, then,” Hill said of the officer being placed on administrative duties. “I’m just glad that my teammates were there to support me in my situation because I felt alone. When they showed up, it made me realize that we have a f—ing good team this year, for them to put their life on the line. It was amazing to see.”