Police union: Tyreek Hill was ‘uncooperative’ during traffic stop

The union representing Miami-Dade police officers said in a statement Monday that Tyreek Hill was “uncooperative” and was “redirected” to the ground while in handcuffs during his detainment before the Miami Dolphins’ game Sunday only because he refused orders to sit.

“Before the Dolphins game yesterday, an incident occurred where Tyreek Hill was placed in handcuffs before being released. First, to be clear, at no time was he ever under arrest. He was briefly detained for officer safety, after driving in a manner in which he was putting himself and others in great danger,” Steadman Stahl, the president of the South Florida Police Benevolent Association, said in a statement.

“Upon being stopped, Mr. Hill was not immediately cooperative with the officers on scene who, pursuant to policy and for their immediate safety, placed Mr. Hill in handcuffs. Mr. Hill, still uncooperative, refused to sit on the ground and was therefore redirected to the ground,” Stahl added.

“Once the situation was sorted out within a few minutes, Mr. Hill was issued two traffic citations and was free to leave.”

Sources told ESPN’s Jeff Darlington on Monday that Hill received citations for careless driving and a seat belt violation. The Dolphins’ Calais Campbell was also detained when he stopped on the scene to offer Hill support, but he did not receive a citation, sources told Darlington.

Meanwhile, Hill’s attorney, Julius Collins, said in a statement later Monday that, “Mr. Hill’s legal team is exploring all legal remedies that may be available to Mr. Hill as we believe that the officers’ actions on September 8, 2024 were excessive.”

On Sunday, the Miami-Dade Police Department released a statement from Director Stephanie V. Daniels, who initiated an “immediate review of all details surrounding the incident.” Three hours later, Daniels announced that one of the officers involved was “placed on administrative duties while the investigation is conducted.”

Said Stahl: “While we wait for the investigation to run its course, based on what we know, we stand with the actions of our officers but look forward to further open communication moving forward. While we are confident in the actions that led to the stop of Mr. Hill, as with any investigation, we will wait for all of the facts to come out, along with any explanation Mr. Hill may have for his actions that initiated this unfortunate incident.”

During an appearance Monday on “The Andy Slater Show,” Stahl said the union has not been able to view body camera footage and officers didn’t know who they had pulled over Sunday morning.

Stahl said Hill’s driving pattern caught officers’ attention; he was allegedly driving at a “high speed through a congested area” and Hill “did not want to comply” when asked to roll down his window.

“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,” Stahl said.

In his statement, Collins disputed that Hill refused to roll down his window. 

“To be clear, the traffic-stop of Mr. Hill by officers of the Miami Dade Police Department originated as a traffic infraction but was then escalated after Mr. Hill provided officers his driver’s license and then rolled his window back up,” Collins said in his statement. “One of the officers then knocked on Mr. Hill’s driver side window and advised Mr. Hill to keep his window rolled down otherwise he was going to get him out of the car. Mr. Hill had his window rolled down and that officer then demanded Mr. Hill out of the vehicle even after Mr. Hill complied with that officer’s request to keep his window down. Immediately after, another officer then aggressively approached Mr. Hill’s vehicle and stated something to the effect that ‘if we have to break that f—ing window we will.’ Mr. Hill rolled down his window each time he was requested to do so by the requesting officers.”

Hill played in the Dolphins’ 20-17 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars and had a game-high 130 yards and scored an 80-yard touchdown — the longest of his career. After the play, Hill celebrated by placing his hands behind his back while teammate Jaylen Waddle “detained” him.

Following the game, Hill said he didn’t know why the situation escalated the way it did. He said he had “no idea” why officers placed him in handcuffs and said he was not disrespectful and did not use profanity toward the officers.

“Right now, I’m still trying to put it all together … I still don’t know what happened,” he said. “But I do want to use this platform to say, ‘What if I wasn’t Tyreek Hill?’ Worst-case scenario, you know? … Everybody has bad apples in every situation, but I want to be able to use this platform to figure out a way to flip this and make it a positive on my end and Miami-Dade and do something positive for the community.

“It’s hard. I don’t want to bring race into it, but sometimes it gets kind of iffy when you do. What if I wasn’t Tyreek Hill? Lord knows what those guys would have done. I just wanted to make sure I was doing what my uncle always told me to do whenever you’re in a situation like that — put your hands on the steering wheel and just listen.”

Stahl said on the show that he wanted to review the body cam footage before developing an opinion on Hill’s comments about not being disrespectful or using profanity toward the officers who detained him. He added that Hill did apologize at the end of the incident and shook the officers’ hands.

Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel called the incident “unsettling” Monday.

“It’s been hard for me not to find myself more upset, the more I think about it,” McDaniel said. “And that’s because of my teammates and trying to put myself in that situation that they’ve described, emotionally … I think the thing that f—s me up, honestly, to be quite frank is knowing that I don’t know exactly what that feels like.”

McDaniel said it was “super important” to let the process play out and that he did not want to rush to judgment. He added that there’s nothing he could tell his players in this situation, opting instead to simply listen to their perspective.

“I think it’s better to listen, more than anything,” he said. “Life is super humbling, and I think it’s important to recognize when your words don’t mean s—. What am I going to say?”

The NFL Players Association is monitoring Sunday’s incident, a source told ESPN’s Marcel Louis-Jacques on Monday. On Sunday, NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy said the league has been in contact with the Dolphins but declined to comment further.

Daniella Levine Cava, the mayor of Miami-Dade County, released a statement commending the department’s immediate launch of an investigation.

“In recent years, our nation has confronted important conversations on the use of force,” she said, “and the internal review process will answer questions about why the troubling actions shown in public video footage were taken by the officer.”

This isn’t the first off-field incident involving Hill.

He was accused of punching his girlfriend in college and got kicked off the team at Oklahoma State, later pleading guilty to domestic assault and battery by strangulation. In 2019, prosecutors in suburban Kansas City declined to charge Hill after an alleged domestic violence incident involving his fiancée and their 3-year-old child.

Last offseason, Hill was under investigation by Miami-Dade police for assault and battery after it was reported that he got into an argument with a South Florida marina worker, which apparently ended with Hill hitting the worker. Hill and the man later resolved their dispute.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.