MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — An emotional Mike McDaniel said here Monday that he understands why Miami-Dade police have not yet released the body cam footage from Sunday’s traffic stop that ended with two of his Miami Dolphins players in handcuffs.
But McDaniel also made clear he expects accountability and transparency from law enforcement regarding how they treated Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill and Calais Campbell outside of Hard Rock Stadium Sunday.
Miami Dolphins’ Mike McDaniel on Tyreek Hill Police Incident
“I am confident that everything will get reviewed, and I am confident that this is too much in the spotlight to just sweep under the rug,” McDaniel told reporters during his regularly scheduled Monday news conference. “So I feel like, what I don’t know now, it’s not my time to know. But I think facts supersede everything. I think it’s important for people to allow a fair process for all information to get distributed.”
Cops placed both Hill and Campbell in handcuffs after pulling Hill over and demanding he get out of his car on the way to Sunday’s game. Hill’s attorney, Julius Collins, wrote Monday that the traffic stop escalated when police wanted Hill to roll his tinted window down more than he did.
“Mr. Hill rolled down his window each time he was requested to by the responding officers,” Collins wrote.
Things got even more heated once Hill was out of the car.
One officer forcibly “redirected [Hill] to the ground,” the South Florida Benevolent Association acknowledged, but because Hill was “uncooperative” during the exchange the officers involved restrained him and sent him to the ground “pursuant to policy.”
Calais Campbell’s Involvement
Campbell, the NFL’s 2019 Walter Payton Man of the Year, was also on his way to the game in a separate car when he saw his teammate in trouble.
He got out of the car and came to Hill’s aid, prompting police to cuff him as well. Campbell was eventually freed of the restraints and not cited. Hill was not arrested but cited for careless driving and a seatbelt violation, per ESPN.
Sunday morning’s events shook not just Hill and Campbell but their teammates and their head coach. McDaniel spoke on the topic for nearly 20 minutes on Monday, becoming emotional multiple times.
“I think the thing that f—s me up, honestly, to be quite frank, is knowing that I don’t know exactly what that feels like,” McDaniel said. “I think it’s very, very important that two things should be true. I think you let due process work and [for] information to be gathered to appropriately project an opinion.
“However, I can’t get away from the fact of what I know their experience to be. … if I’m Calais Campbell and I’m 38 years old and you’re going to work and whatever person innocence that you have — he’s never had — you’re a gigantic, strong, just miraculous man that has done right in all ways, shapes, and forms. There are just elements to that that are very triggering.”
An emotional Mike McDaniel gets choked up when discussing the Tyreek Hill/Calais Campbell incident with Miami-Dade police Sunday. pic.twitter.com/D0VYDjFzQn
— Adam Beasley (@AdamHBeasley) September 9, 2024
McDaniel is biracial with a Black father. However, his skin color is white. That makes his experience different, as he discussed at length on Monday.
“I guess my journey has left me aware, but at the same time, there’s a huge level of ‘I don’t know,’ because I’m not, simply by my appearance, I don’t have a history of feeling profiled,” McDaniel said. “For me in particular, I just feel pretty helpless at times.
“Situations like that, it’s not about the emotions that arise in me. It’s about the people in it. … It’s probably more visceral because, yes, I do spend a lot of time prioritizing empathy, and then when you know you can’t truly understand, the unknown is what crushes me.
“I can only forecast. And so my forecast, what if it’s worse? Since I was young, the racial relations and all things involved in that has been, you know, it’s just kind of one of those things that I’m on the outside looking in at everything going on.
“But I know for one thing, my appearance lends me to the journey of many — not alienated.”