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 “sent” to the ground in handcuffs during his arrest before Sunday's Miami Dolphins game simply because he refused to sit down.

“Before yesterday's Dolphins game, an incident occurred in which Tyreek Hill was handcuffed and released. First of all, to be clear, he was not under arrest at any time. He was briefly detained for safety reasons after driving in a manner that placed himself and others in grave danger,” Steadman Stahl, president of the South Florida Police Benevolent Association, said in a statement.

“After being stopped, Mr. Hill did not immediately cooperate with the police officers on the scene, who handcuffed Mr. Hill as per protocol and for their immediate safety. Mr. Hill, still not cooperating, refused to sit on the ground and was therefore ordered back to the ground,” Stahl added.

“After the situation was resolved within a few minutes, Mr. Hill received two tickets and was allowed to leave.”

Sources told ESPN's Jeff Darlington on Monday that Hill received citations for reckless driving and failure to wear a seatbelt. The Dolphins' Calais Campbell was also arrested when he stopped to assist Hill, but he did not receive a citations, sources told Darlington.

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

On Sunday, the Miami-Dade Police Department released a statement from Director Stephanie V. Daniels initiating an “immediate review of all the details of the incident.” Three hours later, Daniels announced that one of the officers involved had been “placed on administrative duties for the duration of the investigation.”

Stahl said, “While we await the conclusion of the investigation, to the best of our knowledge, we support the actions of our officers, but look forward to continued open communication in the future. While we are confident in the actions that led to Mr. Hill's arrest, as with any investigation, we will wait until all the facts come to light and Mr. Hill has an explanation for his actions that precipitated this unfortunate incident.”

During an appearance on Monday on the “Andy Slater Show,” Stahl said the union had no opportunity to view the body camera footage and police officers did not know who they had stopped on Sunday morning.

Stahl said Hill's driving caught officers' attention. He was allegedly driving at a “high rate of speed through a congested area” and Hill “would not comply” when asked to roll down his window.

“If Mr. Hill had simply given in, it would have only accelerated the process. He chose not to do that, he chose to escalate the situation and make it into something bigger than the Dolphins' victory itself,” Stahl said.

In his testimony, Collins denied 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 began as a traffic violation but then escalated after Mr. Hill showed 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's window and advised Mr. Hill to roll down his window or he would get him out of the car. Mr. Hill had rolled down his window and that officer then demanded that Mr. Hill get out of the vehicle even after Mr. Hill complied with the officer's request to roll down his window. Immediately afterward, another officer aggressively approached Mr. Hill's vehicle and said something to the effect of, 'If we have to break that damn window, we will.' Mr. Hill rolled down his window each time he was told to do so by the demanding officers.”

Hill played in the Dolphins' 20-17 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars, rushing for the most yards of the game with 130 yards and scoring an 80-yard touchdown – the longest of his career. After the game, Hill celebrated by putting his hands behind his back while teammate Jaylen Waddle “held him down.”

After the game, Hill said he did not know why the situation escalated to the extent it did. He said he had “no idea” why officers handcuffed him and said he was not disrespectful or verbally abusive toward the officers.

“Right now, I'm still trying to piece it all together… I still don't know what happened,” he said. “But I want to use this platform to say, 'What if I wasn't Tyreek Hill?' Worst case scenario, you know? … Everyone has black sheep in every situation, but I want to use this platform to find a way to turn this around and make something positive out of it for myself and Miami-Dade and do something positive for the community.”

“It's difficult. I don't want to bring race into it, but sometimes it gets kind of tricky when you do that. What if I wasn't Tyreek Hill? God knows what those guys would have done. I just wanted to make sure I did what my uncle always told me to do when I'm in that situation – put my hands on the wheel and just listen.”

Stahl said on the show that he wanted to review the body camera footage before forming an opinion on Hill's comments about being disrespectful or verbally abusive to the officers who arrested him. He added that Hill apologized and shook the officers' hands at the end of the incident.

Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel called the incident “disturbing” on Monday.

“It's hard for me not to get more and more angry the more I think about it,” McDaniel said. “And that's because of my teammates and because I've tried to put myself emotionally in the situation that they described… I think what's getting me down, honestly, is that I don't know exactly what that feels like.”

McDaniel said it was “super important” to let the process play out and he didn't want to rush to judgment. He added that he couldn't tell his players anything in this situation, but instead just wanted to hear their perspective.

“I think it's better to listen, more than anything else,” he said. “Life is incredibly humbling, and I think it's important to recognize when your words mean nothing. What should I say?”

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

Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava released a statement praising the department for immediately launching an investigation.

“Over the past few years, our nation has faced important discussions about the use of force,” she said, “and the internal review process will answer questions about why the officer took the disturbing actions seen in the publicly available video footage.”

This is not the first off-field incident involving Hill.

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

Last offseason, Hill was investigated by Miami-Dade police for assault after it was reported that he got into an argument with a marina worker in South Florida that apparently ended with Hill punching the worker. Hill and the man were later able to resolve their dispute.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.