Yesterday before the Dolphins / Jacksonville Jaguars game at Hard Rock Stadium, Miami-Dade police stopped Tyreek Hil for allegedly speeding. He was allegedly speeding one block from the stadium. Huh?
Have you ever been to a stadium before a game – even hours before? You can’t speed. Not possible. How fast was he going? What probably happened was he was going 20 in a 15 zone driving a Bentley SUV and the former high school football star who’s now a cop decided to show the $30 million per season wide receiver who is the boss.
Then one of his teammates, Calais Campbell tries too diffuse the situation and he himself was then cuffed and eventually cited.
The only reason the cops are on that detail and collecting the overtime pay that comes with the stadium duty is those same players they’re trying to put in their place.
And while I am a supporter of law enforcement, situations like this are why I am glad there are body cameras and that citizens take videos of these episodes, because otherwise it’s the rich entitled @hole athlete vs the righteous police officer who is sworn to serve and protect. And yup, the cop always wins.
Tyreek took the high road and didn’t use the race card, and it appears some of the cops on scene were also black, but it does make you wonder about Driving When Black, and as he said, what if he wasn’t Tyreek Hill? What if this happened on a random street in a random neighborhood? Cop pulls a guy over, driver asks why, is then pulled out of his car, maybe a luxury car, cuffed and cited or worse, arrested for doing what exactly? His word against the cop. Cop wins. Always.
Similar incident happened to PGA golfer Scottie Scheffler last month. Scheffler was playing in a tournament in Louisville and was actually arrested for allegedly violating traffic laws and some other violation. It was pre-dawn, Scheffler was driving a very-visibly-labeled courtesy vehicle in the golf course parking lot – another place where it’s very hard to speed. Yet super-cop felt it was his duty to detain Scheffler for not obeying his version of a traffic law. Scheffler was very publicly handcuffed and led away by LPD.
Scheffler had his mug shots taken. The arresting police officer was taken to the hospital and claimed injuries, likely with the idea of a huge payday from that scofflaw of a golfer. He said he was violently thrown from the car – that same car moving at least five miles per hour, and was listed in stable condition. Do you think for a moment he had retirement in The Bahamas on his dirty-cop mind during any of this?
News agencies read the Louisville Police Department claim the officer was violently thrown to the ground, his clothing ripped to shreds and was in stable condition. It was all over the news. Stable condition. Whew….glad the cop was alright. Man, that Scheffler is an ass. Who would do such a thing?
Then ESPN and others jumped into the fray and called BS on the scenario and Louisville PD went into damage control, back-peddling and said they would review the incident. Then the officer was placed on administrative leave. I haven’t seen or heard anything since because was probably swept under the rug.
The officer in the Hill incident was also placed on administrative leave and an investigation also opened – but likely only because he is Tyreek Hill. If his name was Terrence Hill, CPA from Pembroke Pines, he’d be looking for a lawyer and sweating a court date.
Something needs to be done with these rogue cops. Granted, there are athletes and people in general who do their best to agitate officers and most officers have thick skin and do their best to be professional.
IMHO there should be rules that no vehicular moving violation or arrest is valid without video evidence via a body camera or some other type of media.
The cops’ word versus the civilian is no longer valid in my opinion.
Seeing Hill lying face down with traffic going by was hopefully the final moment on the police force for the officers involved and hopefully Drew Rosenhaus, Hills’s agent, and Calais Campbell’s attorneys push the legal envelope and litigate the hell out of the Miami-Dade police department and then do the right thing by donating those funds to various Miami-area youth programs.
In this situation, I’m with NWA, F-the Miami PD.
