The videos of Tyreek Hill’s detainment on Sunday morning are as infuriating as they can frightening, especially for Black people as it manifests a fear we all have.
An encounter with the police that goes horribly wrong.
By now, everyone has seen at least one of the videos showing Hill’s traffic stop near Hard Rock Stadium in Miami. As the Dolphins star was driving his McLaren to the stadium, cops pulled him over as they felt he was speeding.
The officer knocked on his window and demanded his license and registration. Hill, who told the officer “Don’t knock on my window like that,” complied and then raised his window back up.
The officer knocked again and told him “Keep your window down, or I’m going to get you out of the car.”
Hill rolled the window down and the officer almost immediately demanded he get out of the car despite Hill’s window being down. Another officer threatened to “break that f*ing window.”
And that’s when things escalated unnecessarily.
As soon as Hill opened the door, the officer grabbed him and dragged him out as two other officers assisted, took Hill to the ground and handcuffed him, all while Hill offered no resistance.
Afterward, as Hill sat handcuffed on the sidewalk, he was joined in handcuffs by teammate Calais Campbell, who did nothing but try and find out what was happening.
Both men were later released at the scene and played in the game, but the incident lingered in the media and, most significantly, in the minds of all Black people as a fearful reminder of incidents, many fatal, witnessed far too often.
Hill followed the officer’s demands yet the latter immediately inflamed the situation by ripping the door open and forcibly dragging Hill out by the back of his head despite Hill having lowered his window.
Some have jumped on Hill for raising his window back up or that he didn’t lower it all the way, but he answered that question during an interview with CNN’s Caitlin Collins.
“If I let my window down, people walking by, driving by, they’re going to notice that it’s me,” Hill said. “And they’re going to start taking pictures, and I didn’t want to create a scene at all. Like, I just really wanted to get the ticket and then go on about my way.”
The South Florida PBA justified the officer’s actions by claiming Hill was “uncooperative”, yet it’s clear to see that Hill complied, offered no resistance and wasn’t threatening officers.
Yet he was taken down by force by not one but three cops.
It’s a frightening moment that lives in the hearts of all Black people, particularly while driving.
Once the door was open, why did the officer need to drag him out of the vehicle? He did nothing to warrant a physical response. He complied and could have been given a chance to simply get out and be reprimanded or questioned.
Instead, a surge of anger welled up and a physical altercation, initiated and carried out solely by a police officer, ensued.
It’s this threat of violence that Black people fear. The fear that an overly aggressive officer could make a simple, yet tense, situation erupt into an unnecessary, violent and even fatal one.
Racists and trolls have, as expected, placed blame on Hill for not complying. They even brought up his past to justify the blame.
That’s par for the course when a Black person is detained. George Floyd’s murder is a primary example of that.
What they fail to realize is that Black people have to, unfairly, live by a separate set of rules during interactions with the police, rules that demand a process be followed in order not to be harmed.
Put your hands on the steering wheel. Don’t make sudden moves. Keep your hands out of your pockets. There’s always a rule that only Black people have to abide by simply because skin color elicits a different response in these situations.
Shockingly, the Miami Dolphins agreed that the police officers overreacted.
“We are saddened by the overly aggressive and violent conduct directed towards Tyreek Hill, Calais Campbell and Jonnu Smith by police officers before yesterday’s game. It is both maddening and heartbreaking to watch the very people we trust to protect our community use such unnecessary force and hostility towards these players, yet it is also a reminder that not every situation like this ends in peace, as we are grateful this one did,” wrote the Dolphins in a statement on X/Twitter.
Some in law enforcement are quick to resort to violence, particularly in situations involving Black people, and sometimes it’s deadly. Unfortunately, that’s not a foreign sight for Black people.
And, as evidenced by Hill and Campbell, celebrity does not make you exempt from these situations.
While we wait for the next developments in this situation, which could include lawsuits, apologies or suspensions, this situation, unfortunately, Hill’s detainment acts as a reminder of the lessons that only Black people must adopt to survive an interaction with law enforcement.
At least this time we thankfully didn’t have to hear “thoughts and prayers.”
