Miami Dolphins receiver Tyreek Hill is opening up about the ‘traumatic’ police stop that ended with him on the pavement in handcuffs.
Ahead of the Dolphins’ ‘Thursday Night Football’ matchup against the Buffalo Bills, Amazon Prime aired a sit-down interview between reporter Taylor Rooks and Hill, four days after he was forcibly removed from his vehicle and detained during a routine traffic stop in Miami.
Hill said he hasn’t fully processed what happened Sunday before the Dolphins’ home opener against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
‘It’s tough. It’s hard. Going through something like that is traumatic,’ Hill told Rooks. ‘It’s embarrassing for my family and my kids. Had my wife (Keeta) worried and she’s pregnant. I’m still trying to put it all together. I’m still trying to put pieces to the puzzle.’
Although Hill never wanted to become a poster child for police brutality, the eight-time Pro Bowler said he will use this situation to bring awareness to excessive use of force by police.
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‘I get a chance to at least try to bring awareness to what this whole entire country has been trying to fix for the past decades,’ Hill said. ‘You got pros and you have cons in every situation, it’s about what you do with it.’
Hill, 30, added: ‘You learn from the situation, you hold yourself accountable.’
‘In the heat of the moment, the officer is thinking about his safety and I’m thinking I don’t want pictures taken of me … before a game getting pulled over. I tried to meet in the middle of here’s my ID and I’m going to leave my window barely tipped,’ Hill said, noting that ‘there’s no law’ against rolling up your window. ‘But does that give them the right to pull me out my car? No that doesn’t. That doesn’t give them the right to put their hands on me.’
Hill added that one of the officers was trying to ‘antagonize’ him while he was detained.
‘When I was handcuffed, the officer was pinching me behind my neck trying to get me to do something to him. It was next level crazy,’ Hill said.
Hill said he has only watched the body camera footage once.
‘I can’t watch it more than once. My mom and wife have probably watched it 100 times,’ Hill said.
Hill said he wants to use the whole situation to ‘move the needle.’
‘It’s all about accountability on both sides. I’m going to take accountability for my wrongs … and I want to hear the accountability on that side,’ Hill said. ‘I don’t want to hear anything from those police officers. We got to talk to the top. We are going to figure it out and have some conversations. We are going to have some very uncomfortable conversations and hopefully we are able to move the needle. I think we will.’
Hill said he’s got calls to boycott the national anthem as a result of the confrontation with police, but he said he won’t because he wants to keep football separate. ‘Football is my sanctuary,’ he said.