Tyreek Hill's Violent Traffic Stop Shows Wider Police Problems in Miami

In body camera footage from Hill's arrest, Miami-Dade officers intimidate bystanders and invoke a law that hasn't gone into effect yet.

The violent traffic stop of Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill by Miami-Dade police officers last week drew national attention and has led to one officer being put on paid administrative leave. It also points to a larger problem with retaliatory detentions, arrests, and police intimidation in the Miami-Dade County.

The Miami Herald reported Saturday that Danny Torres, the Miami-Dade officer placed on leave, has been suspended six times for disciplinary issues in his 27-year career with the department. 

Torres pulled Hill over for allegedly speeding in his McLaren 720S on his way to the Dolphin's season opener against the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Miami-Dade Police Department released body camera footage of the traffic stop a day later.

When Torres knocked on Hill's window, Hill partly rolled down his window, told Torres not to tap on it, and handed him his license. "Just give me my ticket, bro, so I can go," Hill said. "I am going to be late. Do what you gotta do."

Instead, Hill and Torres started arguing over whether Hill had to keep his window rolled down during the traffic stop. When Torres ordered Hill to keep it down, Hill responded: "Don't tell me what to do." Hill did eventually comply and partially rolled it down.

"Keep your window down, or I'm going to get you out of the car," Torres soon said. "As a matter of fact, get out of the car."

Hill repeatedly told officers he was getting out, but they apparently felt he didn't get out fast enough. So Torres and two other Miami-Dade motorcycle officers opened the door and yanked Hill out.

"When we tell you to do something, you do it, understand?" one of the officers yells into Hill's ear as he's pinned to the pavement. "Not when you want, but when we tell you. You're a little fucking confused."

There is no law requiring drivers to keep their windows rolled down during traffic stops, but Florida courts give broad deference to police officers to order someone out of a car for safety reasons. But the Fourth Amendment also protects against excessive and unreasonable force.

Hill was not the only Miami Dolphin handcuffed that day. His teammate, defensive lineman Calais Campbell, arrived to see what was happening to his friend. Officers told him he couldn't park on the side of the road and ordered him to leave.

"I told him I will stand where you want me to stand. You tell me how far I need to back up, and I'll back up, but I'm not leaving the scene," Campbell told CNN. "This is my friend here. I'm here to support him. I'm not leaving."

Federal circuit appeals courts have repeatedly ruled that the First Amendment protects the right to observe and record police in public, as long as you aren't interfering with officers.

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law earlier this year that makes it a misdemeanor crime to approach within 25 feet of a police officer after receiving a verbal warning to stay away. That law does not go into effect until 2025. Yet the body camera footage shows that when another bystander started filming the scene, officer yelled at him to move away, citing the still-pending law. When he didn't move fast enough, an officer got in the man's face to intimidate him. This is not only ignorant of the law; it's thuggish.

Hill and Campbell were ultimately released without being charged.

"What if I wasn't Tyreek Hill?" Hill asked in a post-game press conference last Sunday.

What usually happens in Miami is that the defendant is charged with something like disorderly conduct or "resisting arrest without violence," booked in jail, and then put through several months of process-as-punishment in the Miami-Dade County court system.

"I can't tell you how many wives, girlfriends, moms, etc I've represented for resisting without violence merely because they've dared ask why their significant other was being arrested or where they were being transported," one Miami defense attorney wrote to me in an email earlier this year when I asked him how prevalent retaliatory arrests were.

I spent several months at the beginning of the year researching what happens in cases like that. There were 317 misdemeanor cases filed in Miami-Dade County in 2023 where the only charge was "resisting arrest without violence"—sometimes, but not always, downgraded from more serious charges. Of the 230 cases that were closed when I reviewed them, 98 ended with the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office filing a nolle prosequi—a formal notice that it was dropping prosecution without conditions.

The majority of the other cases, 112, ended with defendants agreeing to pre-trial diversion programs, which are commonly offered to first-time offenders, or having adjudication withheld pending payment of court costs and fines. Twenty defendants were convicted, and four either were acquitted or had charges dismissed by a judge.

Cases of abusive arrests occasionally make the news in Miami. For example, a federal appeals court last month denied a cop qualified immunity from a lawsuit alleging the officer illegally arrested and filed bogus "disorderly intoxication" charges against the comedian Hannibal Burress. Burress had called the officer "stupid as fuck" and said the officer was "just salty that he roasted his ass."

An internal affairs investigation concluded last year that a city police officer unlawfully handcuffed and detained two men for filming him and told them to "enjoy the manly and delicious smells" emanating from the backseat of his cruiser.

In 2022, a police officer held a North Miama man at gunpoint and arrested him for resisting without violence after a verbal dispute while dropping his child off at school. The Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office later dropped the charge after body camera footage showed that the officer lied in his incident report about the man being belligerent and refusing to give his name.

After the bodycam footage of Hill's traffic stop was released, the Miami Dolphins released a statement criticizing the "the overly aggressive and violent conduct directed towards Tyreek Hill, Calais Campbell and Jonnu Smith by police officers."

A South Florida Police Benevolent Association press release issued shortly after the incident said that Hill was "briefly detained for officer safety" after becoming "uncooperative" and that he was never under arrest at any point. The police union also said officers "redirected" Hill to the ground after he refused to sit down. Imagine an NFL announcer saying a linebacker "redirected" a wide receiver to the ground.

Hill was not a model of cooperation, but it's unrealistic and imperious to demand absolute deference to police officers in every public interaction. And when officers rapidly escalate minor situations, mock detained suspects, and flaunt their power over them, it projects insecurity, not authority that deserves immediate respect.