Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava claims the detaining officer in the Tyreek Hill incident acted in “deeply troubling ways” during the Miami Dolphins wide receiver’s viral traffic stop on Sunday.
In a statement to Newsweek on Tuesday on behalf of Cava, a mayor’s office spokesperson said, “The body-worn camera footage from the incident involving Tyreek Hill makes it clear that the detaining officer acted in deeply troubling ways that warrant a full internal review. Miami-Dade County is committed to upholding trust between law enforcement and the community we serve, and to do that it’s critical we ensure there is accountability for any officer who is found to use unnecessary force.”
“That’s why we acted swiftly in initiating a thorough internal investigation within hours of the incident followed by releasing the body-worn camera footage the following day,” the statement continues. “We will continue to keep the community updated on the outcome of that review.”
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava claims the detaining officer in the Tyreek Hill incident acted in “deeply troubling ways” during the Miami Dolphins wide receiver’s viral traffic stop on Sunday.
Associated Press
On Tuesday, the Miami-Dade PD identified Officer Danny Torres, who has a 27-year tenure, as the cop placed on administrative leave for the Hill incident.
Police-worn body cam footage shows multiple officers surrounding Hill, 30, during the detainment but as of publishing time, Torres is the only one placed on leave.
Newsweek has contacted the Miami-Dade PD and mayor’s office for further comment.
Hill received two citations on his way to the Hard Rock Stadium on Sunday: One for careless driving and another for not wearing his seatbelt. Copies of the citations provided to Newsweek state Hill was traveling at a “high rate of speed” with a “visual estimation of 60 mph” in a “high traffic of pedestrians and vehicles” area.
He was penalized $179 for the careless driving citation and $129 for the seatbelt violation. Officer Manuel Batista signed both citations.
Hill maintains that he was compliant with officers during the incident despite body cam footage capturing him ignoring police orders to keep his car window down during the encounter.
“If I wasn’t Tyreek Hill, Lord knows, I probably would have been, like, worst-case scenario, I would have been shot or would have been locked up” and “put behind bars, you know, for a simple speeding ticket,” Hill told NBC News on Tuesday.
“And that’s crazy that officers would take it, you know, to that level.”
Experts Conflicted on Tyreek Hill Incident
After examining the police body camera footage of Hill’s detainment, former Boca Raton Police Chief Andrew J. Scott told Newsweek on Tuesday that he does not believe any of the officers acted inappropriately.
The footage shows officers repeatedly asking the NFL player to lower his tinted car window, but Hill declines and rolls the window up instead.
“Had Mr. Hill complied with the officer’s request initially, and kept his window down, and listened to what the officer said, he would have been on his way in a matter of 10 minutes, gotten his citations, and moved on. That did not happen,” said Scott, who testifies across the country on police practices and procedures, including the use of force.
Scott continued, “As a well-trained police officer, this is now a potentially dangerous situation for me. I can’t see the driver. He’s not following commands. He’s in a 5000-pound vehicle that he could speed away. Maybe he’s going to grab a weapon. I’m concerned. Let me pull him out and get him onto the ground, and let’s find out what’s going on.”
In another segment, officers are seen instructing the handcuffed Hill to sit on the sidewalk. One officer stabilizes Hill by holding his shoulder, while another approaches from behind, grips him around the chest, and guides him to the pavement.
“Hold on, brah. I just had surgery on my knee! I just had surgery on my knee,” Hill exclaims.
Scott says of the scene, “He [the officer] doesn’t push him down. He doesn’t throw him down. He places him on the sidewalk to make sure that Mr. Hill is complying with what is being requested.”
“Having said all of that, I’m not seeing anything in the body-worn cameras that would cause me to say my officers overreacted or my officers didn’t do what their training suggested that they should do,” he said.
However, Neill Franklin, former Commissioner of the Baltimore City Police Department and a Maryland State Police veteran, appeared on CNN on Tuesday and contended that Miami-Dade police actually “escalated” the situation.
“When they were trying to get him to sit down and he says he just had surgery on his knee, one officer responds, saying something to the effect of ‘What a coincidence. Did you just have surgery on your ears?’ You know, talking about him not listening to them right away.”
“This is appalling, and this is one of the main problems we have in policing today – that police officers are not following their training,” he continued. “They’re not using de-escalation techniques that they’re trained in, and in this particular case, as I said before, they actually escalated the situation.”
Franklin went on, “They had his driver’s license. They knew who he was and where he was going. There was absolutely no reasonable suspicion whatsoever to believe that their safety was at risk, so for them to even have him step out of the car … what they did was completely against training. It did not follow case law for the reasoning they used to get him out of the car. Their safety was not at risk.”
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