In case you missed it, former Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Tyreek Hill was involved in a police incident before the Miami Dolphins’ Week 1 outing against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
On September 11, former Chiefs teammate and quarterback Patrick Mahomes II was asked if he’s had “any contact” with Hill since what CNN described as a “pre-game detainment,” and if he had any thoughts on the matter in general.
“No, I mean, I haven’t had any contact with him,” Mahomes first told reporters. Before adding: “But obviously, an unfortunate situation.”
“You’re glad that people are bringing light to it and there’s an investigation being done to make sure everything was done the right way,” the Chiefs superstar continued. “But before that investigation is done, I won’t have any comment on it.”
Details of Tyreek Hill Police Detainment in Miami
Per CNN, Hill was “handcuffed and detained by Miami-Dade Police shortly before his team’s opening game [on September 8].”
“CNN is reviewing the video of the four officers responding to a traffic stop,” the news network reported on September 9. “One shows the initial contact with an officer knocking on the driver’s side window of Hill’s sportscar after signaling for the wide receiver to pull over near the Dolphins’ stadium. Hill rolls down the window when the officer knocks and replies, ‘Hey, don’t knock on my window like that.’”
The officers also questioned Hill as to why his seatbelt was not buckled. After a brief back-and-forth in which the Dolphins wide receiver rolled back up his window, Hill was asked to step out of his vehicle due to behavior that the president of the South Florida Police Benevolent Association called “uncooperative,” per CNN.
The following exchange was described by CNN as follows:
“Another officer opens Hill’s car door and starts to pull him out of the car, saying, ‘Get out!’ while Hill responds, ‘I’m getting out.’ Two officers are seen pushing Hill to the ground while another officer stands over. Hill is heard saying ‘I’m getting arrested’ multiple times, and the one officer physically restraining him says, ‘When we tell you to do something, you do it. You understand? You understand? Not what you want, but what we tell you. You’re a little [expletive] confused.’”
Hill was then handcuffed pinned down by the knee of an officer named Danny Torres, according to CNN. The news network reported that he was held on the ground until it was determined that he was a professional athlete of the Dolphins. At that time, he was “given citations” and released.
Dolphins teammates Jonnu Smith and Calais Campbell also approached the scene during Hill’s detainment. Per AP News, Smith was threatened with a “ticket for blocking the road” and Campbell was briefly handcuffed after refusing to leave Hill with the officers.
Tyreek Hill Says He Is ‘Kind of Shell-Shocked’ From Incident
While speaking with Kaitlan Collins of CNN’s “The Source” on September 9, Hill said that he is “still kind of shell-shocked” from the incident.
“When the officer came up and knocked on my window, I let my window down, cooperated, gave them my I.D. And then I immediately let up my window, and then after that I let back up my window, and then he came back to the window and was like, ‘Let your window down now, let your window down now’ and then I let it down,” Hill said, providing his perspective.
“I’m not trying to cause a scene because… if I let my window down, people walking by, driving by, they’re going to notice that it’s me and they’re going to start taking pictures,” he continued. “I didn’t want to create a scene at all, I just really wanted to get the ticket and then just go out about my way and have a great Sunday.”
In a letter shared with CNN, Hill’s attorney Julius Collins also wrote that “the events that occurred on Sunday, September 8, 2024, are just a reminder of the realities of the many injustices that people of Black and minority communities face at the hands of law enforcement.” Adding: “While we are in no way accusing the officer of being racist, we are accusing the customs and practices of law enforcement from a historical standpoint of being discriminatory and oppressive to black and minority communities.”
With that in mind, Hill voiced to Kaitlan Collins that “the reality of it is… if I wasn’t Tyreek Hill, worst-case scenario, we would’ve had a different article. ‘Tyreek Hill got shot in front of Hard Rock Stadium,’ that’s worst-case scenario.”
Hill and Julius Collins have since called for Torres’ firing. Meanwhile, an internal investigation has already been initiated by the Miami-Dade Police Director Stephanie V. Daniels.
