Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa has opened up on the pain of watching the bodycam footage of Tyreek Hill’s run-in with Miami-Dade police.
The wide receiver was dragged from his car, pinned to the floor and placed in handcuffs while driving to the Dolphins’ season opener against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday.
In the shock footage, which emerged earlier this week, cops could be heard telling Hill to ‘stop crying’ while the 30-year-old said: ‘Take me to jail… do what you have to do.’
On Tuesday, the police citations claimed Hill was stopped because he was believed to be driving 60mph – without wearing a seatbelt. He was fined a combined total of $308.
A few hours earlier, Tagovailoa revealed how it impacted him watching someone he knew go through such an ordeal. ‘It was a little emotional for me hearing Tyreek’s voice in the footage, just knowing Tyreek,’ he said.
Dolphins star Tyreek Hill was dragged from his car and placed in handcuffs on Sunday
The wide receiver was pinned to the floor by officers ahead of the Dolphins’ season opener
‘A lot of the instances I see are of people that I don’t know… for it to have happened to someone that I knew, hearing Tyreek’s voice throughout that, it was a little emotional.’
The quarterback lamented how the detainment escalated, insisting: ‘There’s a lot of things that I think could have been done different.’
He added: ‘I don’t think it was done the right way… I don’t know exactly how I would have dealt with that in that situation.
‘I can’t speak on something that I’ve never personally never gone through myself. I’ve never been through any of that growing up in Hawaii. But he knows that he has my support.’
On Monday night, the Dolphins described the bodycam video as ‘both maddening and heartbreaking’.
‘It was a little emotional for me hearing Tyreek’s voice in the footage,’ said Tua Tagovailoa
The team vowed to stand with Hill and called for ‘swift and strong action’ against the officers guilty of ‘overly aggressive’, ‘violent’ and ‘despicable’ behavior.
Over the weekend, Miami-Dade Police revealed that a cop has been placed on administrative duties pending an internal investigation.
Hill’s agent and his teammate Jalen Ramsey have both called for the cops involved to be fired over their treatment of the NFL star.
But ex-policeman turned conservative influencer Brandon Tatum criticized Hill for rolling his window back up after being pulled over.
‘You rolled the window down and rolled the window back up. Why you mad at them ’cause you speeding? Roll your window down,’ Tatum said.