On Monday, the Miami-Dade Police Department released body cam footage of officers detaining Dolphins receiver Tyreek Hill Sunday morning before his team's home game. The unredacted portions of the video show a routine traffic stop for speeding, escalated by cops on a power trip.
In the video uploaded by Orlando news station WKMG, the officer who pulls over Hill and requests his license takes approximately a minute before he gets aggressive with Hill about rolling up his car window. "Let me get my ticket so I can go," Hill says after asking the officer to not knock on his window. "Do what you gotta do."
Hill rolls his window back up after handing over his license; the officer knocks on it and tells him to keep it down. Once Hill rolls down his window again, the officer threatens to take him out of the car. "Keep your window down, or I'm going to get you out of the car," the officer says. "As a matter of fact, get out of the car." Within seconds, he and two other officers force Hill out of the car, wrestle him to the ground, and handcuff him. When they walk him to the other side of the car and tell him to sit down, he asks them to "hold on," so one officer grabs him from behind, puts his arm around Hill's neck, and forces him to the ground while the receiver yells, "I just had surgery on my knee."
The officer with this particular body cam threatens to arrest both Dolphins defensive lineman Calais Campbell and tight end Jonnu Smith, who have pulled over on the road in separate cars to see what was happening to their teammate. Campbell is handcuffed by another officer; Smith is ticketed.
Significant portions of the video are muted. At one point, the cop wearing the body cam logs into a laptop showing the name Manuel Batista, which matches the name of a Miami-Dade officer. "I’m a very energetic individual, very passionate in what I do, and give my 100% in everything I do," Batista wrote in the "About" section of his now-deleted LinkedIn page.
Eventually, Hill's agent Drew Rosenhaus and Dolphins director of team security Drew Brooks arrive. After roughly 20 minutes, police remove the handcuffs. At the end of the video, Hill shakes hands with almost every officer, including those who detained him.
A review of the available footage shows an annoyed but cooperative Hill, who's ready to accept his speeding ticket. From the start of and throughout the incident, the actions of the officers are unnecessary and aggressive. One cop's need to win a battle over a car window did nothing but escalate matters to the point of physical violence. None of the other cops tried to defuse the situation. Smith had to navigate contradictions: He was speaking with one officer who was telling him to leave, while another yelled at him to hand over his license. The Miami-Dade Police Department has opened an Internal Affairs investigation and has already placed one officer involved on "administrative duties."
All the Dolphins in the video ultimately made it to the game on time and played without issue. Hill was cited for careless driving and a seat belt violation. He had 130 receiving yards, including an 80-yard touchdown, in the Dolphins' 20-17 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars.
After the release of the body-cam video, the Dolphins said in a statement Monday night that they are "saddened by the overly aggressive and violent conduct directed towards" Hill, Campbell, and Smith. The team said that the footage showed police who "serve with misguided power," and hoped that there would be "swift and strong action against the officers who engaged in such despicable behavior."
