Dave Hyde: No defending police overreaction, but Tyreek Hill isn't blameless

The emotion belonged to Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel. But it should be everybody’s emotion right now. The words he chose should be everyone’s words when considering wide receiver Tyreek Hill’s incident with Miami-Dade police, now that an officer’s body-camera video has been released.

“Really, the time since (Sunday) to now, I think for me personally, it’s been hard for me not to find myself more upset the more I think about it,” McDaniel said Monday.

Everybody loses. That’s the saddest part of this incident. Everybody comes out looking bad or feeling worse because Hill didn’t act as he should in listening to officers. Miami-Dade police then overreacted, specifically one unnamed police officer who yanked Hill from his car and, moments later, had him in a chokehold while shoving him to the ground in handcuffs.

The police lose as a stereotype of overreaction gets underlined. Hill loses for being in the middle of a mess. Teammates lose for trying to defuse the situation and becoming part of it. South Florida loses just watching it play out nationally.

The most disturbing part is an ounce of common sense could have prevented this. This wasn’t some shadowy setting late at night. This was Sunday morning outside Hard Rock Stadium. Fans are stopping on the road to video the scene as the police officer walks to Hill’s car.

Hill isn’t perfect in being signaled to stop for speeding. He doesn’t respect the situation. He repeatedly tells the officer not to hit his window as he puts it down and hands over his drivers license.

“Give me my ticket so I can get on my way, bro,” Hill says.

He then puts up his window.

“Keep your window down,” the police officer said.

You or me — you put the window down, right? The windows were tinted, too, meaning the officer couldn’t see into the car and see if there was anything to be wary of.

Hill cracked his window, later saying he didn’t want to open it wide and have fans to start taking video of him. It was too late for that. But that only adds to the larger issue, the one about this not being some threatening scene of danger.

Again, it was Sunday morning outside the stadium, with fans all around, not late at night in some sketchy area.

“Keep your window down or I’ll get you out of your car,” the officer said. “As a matter of fact, get out of the car.”

It was then a second officer came to the car and talked of “breaking the f------ window.” He opened the car door, pulled Hill out and shoved him to the pavement.

“We’re not playing this game,” one officer said.

Did Hill handle himself as he should have? As he said he did immediately afterward stating, “My uncle always told me to do whenever you’re in a situation like that: just listen, put your hands on the steering wheel and just listen?” He did not.

But was there anything to suggest a simple speeding ticket needed to escalate into this aggressive scene? Shouldn’t reading the moment be part of any legal process? Was anyone being threatened in the late morning situation outside Hard Rock Stadium?

Beyond the threat the police brought.

It can be a dangerous and thankless job, being a police officer. It can be an uplifting one when done properly, too. And then there are moments like this that begged for one person, just one, to calm everyone down.

The police underlined a stereotype of angry aggression. Hill underlined his history of not staying out of unfortunate situations. Then there was the sad scene of veteran Calais Campbell, too, the former NFL Player of the Year for his good community work — the one who wanted to “de-escalate the situation,” as he said — being taken away in handcuffs.

There are situations where that would be understandable for police to do all of this, to throw their legal weight around for safety against someone’s dangerous actions. But, again, as you watch the video, was anyone in danger at all? Was no officer able to take the temperature of the moment?

There’s an Everyman quality to this, too, as Hill related after Sunday’s game in saying, “What if I wasn’t Tyreek Hill?” If this type of overaggressive policing can happen to him outside the stadium in full view of everyone, it can happen to anyone, anywhere. That’s the greater concern.

“Call Drew,” Hill kept saying to Campbell and another teammate, Jonnu Smith.

It’s not clear if he meant his agent, Drew Rosenhaus, who was at the game, or the Dolphins‘ head of security, Drew Brooks. At one point, when pulled from the car, Hill was saying into his phone, “Hey Drew, I’m being arrested.”

Brooks is a former policeman. Another Dolphins employee is a former police chief. The team has hosted events to smooth relations between police and communities. So this isn’t an us-versus-them mentality inside the organization. It’s quite the opposite.

Sports, like the larger society, is full of people who wish they could erase one moment from their lives. Maybe this is that for these involved police officers. Maybe Hill sees he could have been a better citizen. There’s enough here for everyone to regret.

Hopefully, someone turns all this bad into something good. Wouldn’t it be nice if Hill told people to follow officer’s directions like his uncle said? Or the police can say they shouldn’t have let their emotions turn a nothing scene into something violent?

Nothing Hill did merited that police reaction in that situation. The bottom line is McDaniel’s emotion should be everyone’s emotion. Part of it, he said of Hill being handcuffed and held in a chokehold, was because, “I don’t know exactly what that feels like.”

Most of us don’t. But watching the video you don’t have to be face down on the street, arms being your back in handcuffs, to wonder why it ever reached that point.