TThe bodycam footage of NFL star Tyreek Hill’s traffic stop before his team’s season opener was released Monday and showed a group of police officers conducting a power grab, behaving unprofessionally and abusing their authority through their ultra-aggressive and combative behavior. From what I saw, they did everything they could to escalate the situation far beyond what was necessary.
Speaking about the incident on Sunday, the Miami Dolphins receiver asked a pertinent question: “What if I wasn’t Tyreek Hill?” His point is that if he were a black man who wasn’t famous, would things have turned out much worse? The answer is undoubtedly yes. No one is saying Hill did everything right on Sunday — he admits on the tape that he was speeding and didn’t immediately comply with officers’ instructions when he was pulled over. But if his name had been Becky or Brad instead of Tyreek and he had done the same thing, would the police have dragged him from the car, handcuffed him, and pushed him facedown onto the hot Miami asphalt?
If Becky had told officers that she had just had knee surgery (as Hill told police during his arrest on Sunday), would they have doubted her story and beat her anyway? Or joked about ear surgery and forced her back to the ground, as they did with Hill?
No matter how much “attitude” Becky gave the officers, it is highly unlikely that any of the above would have happened; and I have seen the contrast firsthand.
One of the most illuminating experiences I had when I went to college was white people talking to the police. I had never seen anything like it before. I remember my first night on campus, which was full of parties at Syracuse University. I saw a white girl yelling insults at a police officer, calling him every name you can think of. All because he told her not to park on the grass. But the officer didn’t throw her to the ground or handcuff her. He didn’t feel threatened by her words because she wasn’t “cooperating directly with the officer on scene, as was policy” (the words the Miami police union used to justify Hill’s treatment). Instead, the Syracuse officer kept his composure and didn’t respond to the barrage of insults hurled at him. I was shocked.
A few nights later I saw another white girl yell at a police officer who appeared to be giving her a ticket, and again there was no retaliation.
It wasn’t just the girls. I saw a group of drunk white fraternity boys, red party cups still in their hands, acting out in the street and shouting for no reason (something I learned white fraternity boys like to do). The police politely told them to go home. Their response: “No, we don’t want that. It’s a free country.” Were they shoved to the ground or given a lick with a baton before spending a night in jail? Of course not.
I told my mother when I called home. “Mom, you won’t believe how these white people here talk to the police and nothing happens to them.” She listened and replied, “As long as you know the rules are different for you. You better not even think about anything even close to what you see them do because the reaction is going to be very different than the police.”
That’s a lesson Hill learned last Sunday. He can’t do what white people do.
It’s unfortunate, but what Hill, and all black people in America, need to do when pulled over by the police is this:
1) Turn down your music
2) Roll down your window
3) Take out your driver’s license and place it on the dashboard
4) When it is night, turn on the interior light
5) Put your hands on the steering wheel, at 10 and 2, when the police approach
6) If your registration is in the glove compartment, tell the officer that you will reach for it before you take your hands off the wheel. Retrieve it slowly, as sudden movements will make the officer nervous and more likely to draw their weapon.
If you’re white and reading this, you may not be familiar with this list—because typically, you don’t have to worry about consequences. But when Black people are stopped by police, we’re tasked with deescalating a situation that escalated in the first place simply because of the color of our skin. So we’re supposed to look completely harmless, even when confronted by an overzealous officer eager to assert his power and dominance—as these officers clearly were with Hill and his teammates. We live in a society where officers have the freedom and protection to act impulsively. Unfortunately, trying to deescalate the situation often ends up is not enough to save a black person from the wrath of an overzealous police officer.
We can see that in the video of Hill’s arrest. His teammate, Jonnu Smith, was on the phone telling someone about the incident, without escalating the situation. Yet an officer confronted him with unnecessary aggression. Another Dolphins player, defensive tackle Calais Campbell, also wanted to check on his teammate. Like Smith, he was non-threatening, but he was also met with aggression and briefly handcuffed.
Police officers themselves know this is a problem. In my book Police Violence and White Supremacy: The Struggle Against American TraditionsI interviewed Joe Ested, a former vice president of the New York City police union. He told me that “there are far more good cops than bad cops, but there are actually systemic problems that have existed in law enforcement for years. And those problems will continue to exist until law enforcement recognizes that there is actually a problem.”
The police officers who encountered Hill, Smith and Campbell, all of whom are black, on Sunday appeared intent on escalating the situation rather than protecting the public. But when people in positions of power are given free rein to behave as they please, situations like Sunday’s are inevitable. Add to that America’s fraught racial politics, and things could get much, much worse.
One of the officers involved in Sunday’s incident has been placed on administrative duties. But would that have happened if the black man they arrested wasn’t one of the best players in the NFL? Or would they have immunity from prosecution, something Donald Trump has promised to give police officers more rights if he wins the presidential election this year?
Sunday’s incident shows that there should be no position in the United States that is unaccountable. And yes, that includes the police.