Tyreek Hill says he could have handled traffic stops better

MIAMI – Three days after his arrest by Miami-Dade police, Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill said he “could have handled the situation better.”

Hill was pulled over for speeding about three hours before the Dolphins' season opener Sunday against the Jacksonville Jaguars. Body camera footage released Monday night showed Hill slowly rolling down his window when the officer asked him to do so and was eventually asked to exit his vehicle.

When he didn't comply quickly enough, a police officer, now identified as Danny Torres, pulled him from his car and handcuffed him while he lay facedown on the pavement. Torres knelt on Hill's back while handcuffing him, and forced him to the ground again about a minute later when Hill was slow to comply with a command to sit down.

Speaking to local media on Wednesday, Hill explained why he waited so long to roll down the window and took responsibility for his actions – but at the same time condemned Torres' behavior.

“My whole life is about responsibility. How can I be better?” Hill said Wednesday. “I would say I could have been better. I could have rolled down my window in that moment. But the thing about me is, man, I don't want attention. I don't want [there] having cameras pointing at you in that moment, having cell phones pointed at you – but at the end of the day, I'm only human. I have to follow rules. I have to do what everyone else would do.

“Does that give them the right to literally beat me up? Absolutely not. But at the end of the day, I wish I could go back and do things a little differently.”

Hill said he was at a movie theater Monday night when the body camera footage was released and received a call from Dolphins security director Drew Brooks alerting him to it.

He left the cinema to watch the footage, which he described as “shocking”.

“I feel like I handled myself well in that situation,” he said. “But obviously, like I said, I can be better, but it's shocking, man. It's really crazy to know that there are police officers in this world that are literally doing that with their body cameras on. It's sad. It's really sad. That brings up another conversation and leads to the question of what would they do if they didn't have body cameras. Which is even crazier. So there's a lot of explaining to do, man.”

Through his attorney Julius Collins, Hill released a statement Tuesday evening calling for Torres' immediate termination from the Miami-Dade Police Department. Torres, who has worked with the MDPD for 27 years, is currently assigned to administrative duties while an internal investigation into the incident takes place.

Hill staunchly stuck to that statement on Wednesday, saying Torres must go – not only because of his actions against Hill, but also because of what he did to Hill's teammates Jonnu Smith and Calais Campbell, who stopped by the scene on Sunday to support Hill.

Body camera footage shows Torres aggressively approaching Smith shortly after forcing a handcuffed Hill to the ground and later arresting Campbell for, as the former Walter Payton Man of the Year Award winner described it, “disobeying a direct order.”

“I have to say, I could have been better. I could have rolled down my window at that moment. But the thing about me is, man, I don't want attention. I don't want [there] to have cameras and phones pointed at you right now – but at the end of the day, I'm only human. I have to follow rules. I have to do what anyone else would do. Does that give them the right to literally beat me up? Absolutely not.”

Tyreek Hill

“He's got to go, man,” Hill said of Torres. “Because in that moment, not only did he mistreat me, you know what I mean? He disrespected my teammates. He said some crazy words about them and they didn't even do anything. What did they do to you? They just walked on the pavement.”

Hill also said that Torres' legal representative approached him and Collins to apologize, but the offer was declined.

In the body camera footage, Hill can be heard saying he recently underwent knee surgery just before Torres forced him to the ground for a second time. Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel confirmed that Hill underwent a “minor procedure” on his knee in the offseason, with Hill clarifying that he traveled to Antigua to receive a stem cell injection.

McDaniel said he felt sadness rather than shock when he first saw the footage. He said the All-Pro could have handled the situation better, but added the officers' response was “unnecessary” and a conversation about the cause of the incident was “trivial.”

Although Hill was adamant about wanting Torres fired, he said he would not protest and did not want to defund the police. He reiterated that he “loves” the police and wants to be a cop one day – but he hopes that, like football, people will watch the video and “become better because of it.”

Hill has been at the center of numerous off-field incidents since joining the Dolphins in 2022, including a physical altercation with a Haulover Marina employee in June 2023 and a lawsuit alleging he broke a social media influencer's leg earlier this year.

McDaniel said Hill was “a different person” than when they first met, and Hill, 30, said he believes he has grown in the years since.

“This happened at the right time in my life because I've matured so much, the way I've handled my kids, the way I've profiled myself as a father, just all of that, man,” Hill said Wednesday. “The older I've gotten, man, the more I've realized how important it is for me to just be a professional among professionals. Obviously when you first come into the league, you just want to have fun and do what you want. But I've done all of that. I see now how important it is to be a father, a husband, a son and just be the family man that my grandparents raised me to be, man.

“So this is the maturity [McDaniel is] what I'm talking about. When my teammates see me now, I'm with my wife and kids. I'm enjoying life, man. I'm taking it slower. I'm not doing the crazy things I did when I first came into the league. I carry myself with a lot of dignity now in a lot of ways.”

Speaking to a small group of reporters in Pittsburgh, NFL Players Association executive director Lloyd Howell expressed frustration over the incident in Miami and said the union had offered support to Hill and the other Dolphins players involved.

“As a human being, I'm shocked, dismayed, disappointed, angry and frustrated that here we are, guys who are just leaving for their jobs, being thrown to the ground, being dragged out of their car and kissing the asphalt,” Howell said of his reaction. “That's not good for anyone, I think.”

“…I think going forward it's a matter of communication, no matter what your circumstances are, taking care of yourself and your family and hopefully that will translate to the field. That's the way it is right now. I know there are investigations and things like that. It's not my place to comment on that, but we try to support our players and our members as best we can in their day-to-day lives and what's happening on the field.”

Howell said the NFLPA is working to educate its members on what to do in similar situations through several off-field support and education programs.

“These are professionals who have been in the spotlight for some time and both at the club level and in the athletic department we talk all the time about being aware of your surroundings and this and that,” Howell said. “We'll continue to do that, but I think Scottie Scheffler was also stopped on his way to a major golf event. So obviously that happens everywhere.”

“We want to make sure our guys are aware of that. … Certainly someone from Tyreek and Calais' [Campbell] Statur makes it clear, so we make sure we learn from that and then give the guys advice on what to look out for.”

ESPN's Brooke Pryor contributed to this report.