Tyreek Hill gets (almost) arrested

I hadn't planned on talking about this situation, but it has made an extended news cycle, and has some aspects that are worth noting. 

The story is that Tyreek Hill, who plays for the Dolphins football team, was on his way to the game in his fancy sports car.  He was pulled over for speeding which we later learned was on the Turnpike, before he exited onto the roads around the stadium; we are told he was going 55 in a 40 MPH zone and they pulled him over what seems to be much later. 

The police exerted their authority over him, and pulled him out of the car, handcuffed him, and threw him onto the ground. All while (a) they were aware who he was and (b) he was cooperating reasonably well.  I've attached the body cam from one of the officers below so you can see how this played out.

Here's the thing that gets me: sometimes you'll see a video of someone else getting kind treatment by police, and no force is used. 

What's the difference you may ask?

In my humble opinion, this is often about race.  The pleasant white woman is helped along.  The black man in the expensive car gets roughed up because he wasn't OVERLY nice; he was merely acting just like anyone else might.

And therein is the summary of what the Black Lives Matter movement was/is about: being treated the same as everyone else.  Put away the rhetoric and the dumb politics of it and just think about it as being fair.

We can do better.  Having the authority to pull someone out of his car for speeding (but being decent), vs actually doing it, is something we need to discuss.

Maybe this story is the next chapter in that conversation.  We can hope, anyway.

And that, maybe, would have been the end of the story, except another detail emerged later.  A second player (Calais Campbell)  was on his way into the stadium, when he saw what was happening and pulled over “to help.”  The police took exception to that, and restrained him from getting involved. I have heard conflicting reports about whether he was handcuffed or not, but he was viewed as a threat. 

As the situation escalated because of the police action(!), the police made the decision to arrest both Hill and Campbell, and haul them off to jail. 

And that’s when the Dolphins organization stepped in. Remember that this was at the stadium, which the dolphins own. And the dolphins pay for the police to be there (at nearly every stadium, the police are paid overtime to be there as a kind of perk of the job, so essentially they are private security for the team). 

The dolphins learned about the situation, and asked the police to release the players so they could play in the game. 

This raises a whole bunch of other questions for me, and should concern all of us. The police overreached. But then relented because they were asked to by a sports team? Sigh 

Oh and one last thing:  the guy who first posted video of the incident on social media - the video was the impetus for the national attention - was interviewed.  In short, he was only concerned with his football star being able to play in the game! Which is another part of the problem...how about concern for the guy and how policing works?

Tyreek: https://youtu.be/ba9x9a3EGLI?si=A0SH8z6nYNwiBp04

Other case: https://youtu.be/iCrb01JVHCE

Hill made light of the situation on a touchdown celebration.