Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa told reporters on Tuesday that he has viewed the body camera footage from Tyreek Hill‘s detainment and he believes the situation “should have been deescalated another way.”
“It was a little emotional for me hearing Tyreek’s voice in the footage, just knowing Tyreek,” Tagovailoa said during his weekly news conference. “For me, a lot of the instances I see are of people that I don’t know, and it’s happening to those people. For it to have happened to someone that I knew, and sort of hearing Tyreek’s voice throughout that. We talked about it. It was a little emotional. 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.
“I don’t think it was done the right way. There’s a lot of things that I think could have been done different.”
Body camera footage released on Monday showed a police officer dragging Hill out of his sports car by his arm and head and then forcing him face first onto the ground after Hill put up the window of his sports car during a traffic stop before Sunday’s game against the Jaguars.
The video showed that the altercation between the Miami-Dade County officers and Hill escalated quickly, that the officers cursed at Hill but he did not resist their physical force or strike at them.
The Dolphins released a statement on Monday after the footage release, expressing sadness over the conduct shown to Hill and his teammates Calais Campbell, who was also briefly detained on Sunday, and Jonnu Smith, and urging “strong action against the officers” involved.
NFL Network Insider Tom Pelissero reported on Tuesday that Hill was issued citations for carless driving, due to driving at an estimated rate of 60 mph in high pedestrian and vehicle traffic, and a safety belt violation, with a combined penalty of $308.
Tagovailoa told reporters on Tuesday he was initially unware of what happened to Hill before Sunday’s game before he saw the news on TVs at Hard Rock Stadium.
“He didn’t seem fazed in the locker room,” Tagovailoa said of Hill.
Tagovailoa said that the incident has led to conversations in the locker room about policing and different people’s experiences with law enforcement. He also said the team has discussed ways they could enact change.
“I know Tyreek has gathered a group of us together to do something to help change some things,” Tagovailoa said. “He’s come up with a couple of ideas, and we’ve gathered to talk about what we wanted to do. Obviously, we’re going to worry about this week, but next week we’ll get back together, and we’ll talk about how we can do something to help change what’s going on right in our backyard.”
The Dolphins (1-0) have a potentially pivotal early-season game against the rival Buffalo Bills (1-0) on Thursday night at home. Tagovailoa said that while they’re preparing for Week 2’s game, it’s important they don’t brush aside what happened on Sunday and simply focus on football.
“I think the thing is we don’t avoid the obvious,” Tagovailoa said. “It’s a thing, yeah. Let it be what it is. Let it take its course. I think when we start to brush that away, and think that this football thing is the most important thing to us, when this isn’t just something that Tyreek gone though, this is something that people in general go through. That’s a life thing. Football, we’re blessed to do this. We’re blessed to be able to play this sport. We’re blessed to make all this money to do what we love for fun. But that’s real life, no games in that.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
