By Joe Saunders September 11, 2024 at 4:19pm
Miami Dolphins receiver Tyreek Hill has been catching as much flak as NFL footballs since he was detained on Sunday en route to the Dolphins’ Hard Rock Stadium in a clash with police that put him in handcuffs.
In a news conference Wednesday, he admitted he “could have been better” during the interaction, according to The Miami Herald.
It was a stunning admission, under the circumstances — made even more stunning by the fact that the offensive star immediately went on the offensive against the cop who pulled him over — with an obvious distortion of what took place.
The encounter started when Hill was pulled over by a police officer who estimated, according to USA Today, that Hill had been driving 60 mph in a 40 mph zone.
It escalated when Hill rolled up the window of his sports car and refused to lower it, at one point telling the officer “don’t tell me what to do,” as CNN reported.
That spurred the officers to pull Hill from the vehicle, handcuff him as he lay prone on the ground, then detain him. He was held for about 15 minutes, according to The Palm Beach Post.
Hill been publicly unrepentant since the encounter — and even appeared to mock the police by celebrating a touchdown in the season opener with a teammate who pretended to handcuff Hill in the end zone. He’s defended his actions in media interviews.
So his admission — belated and apparently through at least figuratively gritted teeth — that he “could have been better” might come as a surprise.
“I have family members who are cops,” Hill said, according to the Herald. “We’ve had conversations. Yes, I will say I could’ve been better. I could’ve let down my window in that instant.”
Tyreek Hill: “I could have been better. I could have let down my window.”pic.twitter.com/mCdzovjdSd
— OutKick (@Outkick) September 11, 2024
Then he shifted to making excuses.
“But the thing about me is I don’t want attention. I don’t want to be cameras out, phones on you in that moment,” he said.
“But at the end of the day, I’m human. I’ve got to follow rules, I’ve got to do what everyone else would do.”
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Then he went on the attack.
“Now, does that give them the right to literally beat the dog out of me? Absolutely not. But at the end of the day, I wish I could go back and do things a bit differently.”
The problem with Hill’s statement is that the encounter was captured by police bodycams, and released to the public on Monday.
The video shows the officers never “beat the dog” out of Hill — “literally” or figuratively. They never beat him at all. They forced him from his vehicle when he was blatantly uncooperative.
Hill’s caught plenty of criticism over his behavior. In a post Tuesday on the social media platform X, NBA player Jonathan Isaac of the Orlando Magic wrote that the video of Hill should be “shown to every black boy on how not to act when being pulled over.” (Actually, “shown to every driver in America” would have been a better way of putting it.)
After Hill’s news conference on Wednesday, reaction on social media was mixed, with some users giving Hill credit for acknowledging his own role, but plenty blasting him for instigating the situation in the first place, then escalating it again with his accusations.
So you could have followed lawful commands and avoided the entire incident, instead you acted like an entitled child and escalated the situation.
— Todd Bolling (@toddbolling) September 11, 2024
Cooperation would have changed everything
— Phillip Solano (@solanopd62) September 11, 2024
Day late. Dollar short. … specifically because he adds in the false accusation of being beaten.
— Stacy in Austin (@stacysass) September 11, 2024
Hill’s statements didn’t stop at accusing police of doing something they clearly didn’t do. He also demanded the firing of Officer Danny Torres, a 27-year veteran of the department, according to the Herald.
Torres has been placed on administrative leave pending an internal investigation of the incident, the Herald reported.
Joe has spent more than 30 years as a reporter, copy editor and metro desk editor in newsrooms in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. He’s been with Liftable Media since 2015.
Joe has spent more than 30 years as a reporter, copy editor and metro editor in newsrooms in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. He’s been with Liftable Media since 2015. Largely a product of Catholic schools, who discovered Ayn Rand in college, Joe is a lifelong newspaperman who learned enough about the trade to be skeptical of every word ever written. He was also lucky enough to have a job that didn’t need a printing press to do it.
Birthplace
Philadelphia
Nationality
American
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