Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill wants the officer that handcuffed him to be fired, but he also acknowledged Wednesday that he didn’t handle the incident particularly well.
“I will say I could’ve been better,” Hill said. “I could’ve let down my window in that instant, but the thing about me is I don’t want attention. I don’t want to be cameras out, phones on you in that moment. But at the end of the day, I’m human, I’ve got to follow rules, I’ve got to do what everyone else would do.
“Now, does that give them the right to literally beat the dog out of me? Absolutely not. But at the end of the day, I wish I could go back and do things a bit differently.”
Hill, 30, was cited by police for speeding at a “visual estimate of 60 mph” and not wearing a seatbelt. Immediately after he was pulled over, Hill rolled down his window to hand his license and registration to an officer and rolled him window back up. When an officer knocked on his window to tell him that he needs to keep it down, Hill took a little over 10 seconds to roll the window back down a few inches.
An officer then reached inside the car to open the door and dragged Hill, who was on the phone with Dolphins head of security Drew Brooks, to the pavement. The same officer, who has been placed on administrative duty, later dragged the receiver to the ground a second time and also handcuffed Miami defensive lineman Calais Campbell.
“I don’t think that we should use this as a moment to separate people or divide people or make it a battle or anything like that, because I still love cops,” Hill said. “I want to be a cop. I’ve been standing on the table for the cops, but at the end of the day right now what I’m focused on is my job and that’s to play football.”
On Thursday night, the Dolphins will host the Buffalo Bills with kickoff set for 8:15 p.m. ET.
