Dolphins coaches and players react to footage of traffic stop in Tyreek Hill

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Tyreek Hill’s teammates and coaches used words like “triggering” and “a disgrace” to Body camera footage shows a police officer dragging the Miami Dolphins receiver out of his sports car during a traffic stop and throwing him face first onto the ground.

The incident outside the Dolphins' stadium has garnered national attention. It has also sparked locker room conversations among Hill's teammates, some of whom privately shared their own personal experiences with police, quarterback Tua Tagovailoa said.

“It was a little emotional for me to hear Tyreek's voice in the footage,” Tagovailoa said Tuesday.

Video released Monday night by Miami-Dade police showed the traffic stop escalating quickly hours before Miami's season opener after Hill rolled up his car window.

Hill rolled down the driver's side window and gave his license to a police officer who had been knocking on the window. Hill then repeatedly told the officer to stop knocking before rolling the dark-tinted window back up.

After a back and forth around the window, body camera video shows an officer pulling Hill out of his car by his arm and head, then pushing him face-first onto the ground. Officers handcuffed Hill and one pressed a knee into the middle of his back.

“It's a shame that this had to happen,” said Dolphins offensive coordinator Frank Smith. “When you spend all your time with these guys, you always want to be there for them and help them. I, like a lot of people, wish I was there to help them.”

In a CNN interview, Hill said he was embarrassed and “shocked” by the incident and believes he followed officers' instructions.

The video shows officers lifting Hill up and handcuffing him to the sidewalk. An officer ordered him to sit on the curb. Hill told the officer he had just had surgery on his knee. An officer then jumped behind him, placed a bar around Hill's chest or neck, and pulled Hill into a sitting position.

Police Director Stephanie Daniels launched an internal investigation that same day and an officer was assigned administrative duties.

The department on Tuesday identified the officer assigned to administrative duties as Danny Torres, who has worked for the department for 27 years. Ignacio Alvarez, Torres' attorney, in a statement called for his client's immediate reinstatement while respecting Daniels' request for an investigation.

South Florida Police Union President Steadman Stahl issued a statement Monday saying Hill did not “immediately cooperate with officers” and that officers followed protocol when handcuffing Hill.

The altercation, which can be seen on the bodycam videos of six police officers, has sparked discussions about the experiences of black people with the police.

“It's hard for me not to get more and more angry the more I think about it,” Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said Monday before the footage was released. “I think what's getting me down, quite frankly, is knowing that I don't know exactly … what that feels like.”

McDaniel, who is biracial, said his life experiences have given him a “knowledge” of conversations about race, even though he has never been in a similar situation to Hill.

Safety Jevon Holland said he was not surprised by what he saw in the footage.

“I'm 24,” Holland said. “Since Twitter came along, since Rodney King, there have been a lot of very disturbing and upsetting videos, bodycam footage over and over again. I'd like to be more shocked and surprised, but I'm not.”

Holland also condemned those who took advantage of Hill’s past Allegations from Violence to justify any excessive use of force.

“Doing something in the past, whether it was right or wrong, does not justify or condemn you to be treated that way when the situation has nothing to do with it at all,” Holland said.

Many players were confused when they saw Hill's teammate Calais Campbell being handcuffed. Campbell, a widely respected defensive tackle who just began his 17th NFL season, stopped to help when he saw Hill in handcuffs but was also briefly handcuffed. Hill and Campbell were eventually released and allowed into the stadium. Hill received citations for reckless driving and failure to wear a seatbelt.

“If I'm Calais Campbell and I'm 38 years old and you go to work, no matter how innocent you are – you're a huge, strong, just wonderful man who did the right thing in every way. There are just elements that are very triggering,” McDaniel said.

The Dolphins' black defensive coordinator, Anthony Weaver, also described the video footage as triggering and a reflection of his own life.

“It's unfortunate that it's like this in this day and age,” Weaver said. “I have two boys — my wife is Mexican-American — and both times they were born, and both were light-skinned, it was almost a sense of relief that they would be spared some of the problems that I've struggled with my whole life.”

Drew Rosenhaus, Hill's agent, appeared on the Dan Le Batard Show Tuesday morning and called for the firing of at least one of the officers involved.

“Personally, I think the police officers that did this to Tyreek shouldn't be in this position. They should be fired,” Rosenhaus said as footage of the altercation was shown. “Look at the guy that just kicked him. That guy should be fired. This is out of control.”

Tagovailoa said Hill called together some of his teammates to try to turn the situation into something that could benefit the community.

With a crucial game against division rival Buffalo on Thursday, the Dolphins must put the distractions of the week behind them but at the same time not lose perspective, Tagovailoa said.

“We're not avoiding the obvious. It's a thing. Let it be what it is. Let it run its course,” Tagovailoa said. “I think when we start to put that aside and think that this football thing is the most important thing to us, if that's not just something that Tyreek went through.”

“That's something that people go through in general. That's a thing of life. Football, we're blessed to do that. We're blessed to be able to play this sport. We're blessed to make all this money doing what we love and it's for fun. But that's real life. There are no games.”

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