The first clue should have been a guy driving a McLaren into a football stadium. Then again, if cops outside of the PGA Championship can’t figure out that the guy was Scottie Scheffler, why should Miami-Dade motorcycle cops realize the driver was Tyreek Hill?
When stopped by police while allegedly speeding and not wearing a seatbelt, would the first thing out of your mouth be “don’t tap on my window,” and then repeated over and over rather than, well, “Good morning, Officer”? Would the next thing be to not lower your window when the officer directs you to keep your window down, an unremarkable request so the cop can see what the person stopped is doing behind his darkly tinted window?
In the footage, the first officer to approach the car asked Hill why he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, to which Hill replied by asking the officer not to knock on his window as he had moments before. After Hill handed over his license he rolled his window back up, which the officer appeared to take exception to. After the first officer knocked on the window again and told Hill to keep the window rolled down, a second officer came over, opened the door to Hill’s car and pulled him out by the arm. The officer grabbed Hill by back of his head, forced him to the ground and handcuffed him with the help of another officer.
But then, was this a scenario to de-escalate tension or to leap straight into ordering the driver out of the car, to physically remove him from the car and then put him on the ground and cuff him? Did he do anything to suggest he posed a threat to the officers? Granted, there was some whiff of contempt of cop by not being obsequious when commanded to act,
By the third time, less than two minutes after the interaction began and with the window nearly closed, the officer said, “Keep your window down, or I’m going to get you out of the car.”
Then, almost immediately, he said he would do just that. “As a matter of fact, get out of the car,” the officer said. “Get out of the car right now. We’re not playing this game.”
Was Hill expecting to be treated like the Dolphins star wide receiver? Was Hill uncooperative because stars don’t have to follow commands? Or was it because he was a black man driving a McLaren?
A little later, while the detaining officer was on his computer, Mr. Hill, now sitting on the curb, said, “I’m just being Black in America, bro.”
“We’re dark too, bro,” an officer replied, apparently referring to several of the officers being Hispanic. “We’re people of color.”
As the phrase “nobody is above the law” has become a ubiquitous chant these days, does that not apply to football players as well?
In an interview on CNN on Monday night, Mr. Hill said that he had done what the officers had asked of him, and that he was “shellshocked” and “embarrassed” about what had happened.
“I was following rules,” he said. “I didn’t want to create a scene at all. I just really wanted to get the ticket, and then just go on about my way.”
There is little question that Hill did not pose a threat to the police officer justifying his being taken out of his car and put on the ground to be cuffed. While he may not have been the most cooperative driver, he did nothing to justify the cops’ resort to force. But the fact that they stopped the Dolphins’ star (remember the first clue, the McLaren?) meant that the stop would be subject to intense scrutiny, parsed detail by detail, and even though Hill was eventually given two citations and released to go play football and score a touchdown, the stop provides a detailed view into the dynamic between cops and driver, and cops and football star.
Who was wrong? Was the force used necessary? Justified? Was this just another example of “driving while black” in America, or an example of wide receiver privilege by chastising a cop not to tap on your window and refusing to roll down his window, unlike any driver stopped for traffic violations who doesn’t want to push the police into taking more extreme action?
*Tuesday Talk rules apply.
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Hill is hardly the most sympathetic figure, to put it very mildly, and has the kind of name recognition where police might’ve known his history. He also was a lot less cooperative than most drivers, and made it unnecessarily difficult. But personal animus against someone, however revolting, isn’t an excuse to use excessive force; once they ordered him out, they didn’t even him a chance to get up before tossing him. If this is what they do when they *know* they’ll be heavily scrutinized, it doesn’t give me confidence they’d handle a lower-profile situation the right way.
Had it not been Hill in the McLaren, would the driver have ended up beaten for mouthing off a little to the cops? As you’ve said many times, cops aren’t black or white, but blue.
The silence is deafening around here today. That is all.
I watched the bodycam video this morning. These cops went from 0 to 100 on the aggressive scale in mere seconds. Completely over the top. Completely uncalled for.
It might be unfair but the police have the upper hand in this situation. They may have just come from a stressful situation previously, or maybe Hill did. So it’s possible that both cops and Hill were already agitated.
Either way this is how some cops are going to act unless there is categorically no reason to( there are acceptions)
A stupid driver or an ignorant cop can singlehandedly prolong and escalate a simple traffic stop, but to create a truly ridiculous spectacle takes at least two idiots working together.
The palpable ignorance on both sides of this encounter is frustrating.
Police identifying as paramilitary forces is a general problem. The idea that these officers merit the benefit of the doubt from the people they’re trying to get to move along is tone deaf.
Citizens, whether they’re confused by the encounter because they’re on the Good Guy Curve or because any perceived disrespect is cause for adoption of an attitude, sometimes lose sight of the reality that being in the right is irrelevant unless you survive.
Yelling like a 3-year old while being detained is a puzzle to me, too. My LEO older brother gave me the talk years ago: “Yes, sir. No, sir. Three bags full, sir.” Should that be necessary? Of course not. He wasn’t describing what should be, nor what he expected of others, merely how I could avoid escalating a situation I would never control.
tl;dr? I blame both
Rolling up a tinted window is not going to go well.
Cops want to see in the car.
Submit to authority.
Do what you are told.
Attitude and/or being a “punk” will never help in any situation, ever.
Right or wrong, suck it up and let lawyers work it out afterwards.
Otherwise “Hill” is the best case scenario, worst is you get shot and killed.
I am not saying Mr. Hill was in the wrong. Just repeating what all of the dozen or so lawyers I share blood with say every time such things come up.
Lawyers have a saying, “comply now, grieve later.” It’s a great way to not get beaten and stay alive.
My initial reaction to this story was to think that everyone involved is an idiot. I still think that, but after reflection I realize that the officers had a greater responsibility.
Knowing how to navigate a traffic stop gracefully is a valuable skill that everyone should develop, and obviously Mr. Hill hasn’t done that, but in his defense, he is operating outside his area of expertise. If he faced a police officer on the football field, expectations would be high for Hill and low for the officer. Likewise, during a traffic stop, we can’t expect much from a football player driving a McLaren, but we do expect a police officer to know what he is doing and to handle the difficult situations that will inevitably occur, in the best way possible. Given that a non-zero percentage of the people he encounters will behave unpredictably, an officer who fails to anticipate and gracefully manage those situations is not a good officer.