(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) The reactions to a viral video showing NFL star Tyreek Hill, a wide receiver for the Miami Dolphins, being pulled over, yanked from his car and put in handcuffs just three hours prior to Sunday’s season-opener have been predictably mixed.
For many, the first reaction may be confusion: What is this? Why am I watching it? Why are these officers of the law behaving in such a way? What happened prior to this that elicited such a robust response from law enforcement?
It helps, of course, if one is aware that the suspect is a high-profile, wealthy and influential sports star, not just some showboat driving around in a flashy, $350,000 McLaren 720S.
It helps even more if one is already aware that Hill allegedly was pulled over for speeding past the two motorcycle patrol officers at 60 mph on an access road not far from Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium, where the officers were likely assisting in directing game-day traffic.
Hill was rumored, in fact, to have been going considerably faster, around 100 mph, suggesting the charges against him were later reduced for strategic reasons. Some on social media went so far as to provide additional context regarding Hill’s less-than-upstanding character.
At any rate, while the video appears to make reference only to Hill not having his seatbelt on, this was not someone who was uncertain about what crime he had committed or who was being randomly profiled.
It may take a second or third viewing, along with a clearer understanding of the context, to begin to unpack the underlying motives and assign fault for what seems to be a routine traffic stop gone awry.
Then again, it may warrant an even deeper dive to really grasp the underlying motives, amid the backdrop of a no-holds-barred campaign season that follows in the wake of a four-year fever dream, in which very little of what we’ve been told has proven to be facially true.
‘DONT TELL ME WHAT TO DO’
From what the video footage shows, Hill first instigates the cascading series of problems by reprimanding police for tapping on the window of his vehicle, then putting the windows back up.
“Don’t knock on my window like that” Hill says, while handing an officer his driver’s license.
“Why you have it up? I have to knock to let you know I am here,” replies the officer, later listed on the ticket as M. Batista, who appears to be Latino.
“Give me my ticket, bro, so I can go. I am gonna be late. Do what you gotta do,” Hill tells the officer.
Officer Danny Torres, Batista’s backup, is also heard identifying Hill by name, lest there be any confusion that they knew they were dealing with a player on the team.
Hill puts his tinted window back up at that point. He later told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that he didn’t want to “create a scene” if fans entering the stadium were to walk by and recognize him.
Batista raps on the window again and instructs him to “keep it down.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Hill says.
“Keep the window down or I am going to get you out of the car. As a matter of fact, get out of the car,” Batista replies.
It is not until the officers escalate the situation—arguably disproportionately—by yanking him from the car and pinning him to the ground that Hill shifts to a more deferential tone.
“All right, bruh, take me to jail. Do what you gotta do,” he says while being handcuffed.
“We will,” says Torres.
‘WE DONE DID THE WALKS … SO WHAT’S NEXT?‘
Shortly thereafter, two other players—identified in a subsequent statement by the Miami Dolphins as Calais Campbell and Jonnu Smith—pulled up to the scene of the traffic stop, despite being told not to park there, and were equally uncooperative with the officers.
Nonetheless, the team accused the officers of “unnecessary force and hostility” and referred to their conduct as “despicable” in the statement, which implied that Hill and his teammates were entirely in the right.
“We will stand beside Tyreek and our players as they work to use their platform and this situation to make a positive impact in our community,” said the statement.”
Torres has since been suspended pending an internal investigation, while Hill has been emboldened to take a victory lap—which included an 80-yard-pass touchdown celebration making light of the episode.
He also wasted little time turning it political, with a Monday night appearance on CNN in which he vowed to use his “resources” for left-wing activism.
“We done tried it all, you know what I’m saying,” Hill told Collins.
“We done protests, we took a knee, we done did the walks, like, so what’s next?” he continued. “So right now, me and my wife, we’re right now brainstorming on ‘how we can be a part of this change?’… We wanna be able to change lives all the way across the world, not just Miami.”
If Hill were operating in good faith—if the facts all aligned on his side, as the leftist press would have one believe—then his measured and mild-mannered conduct in contrast with the volatile-seeming police might be inspiring.
But one has to consider the possibility also that this may be a Trojan horse: a staged event designed to mobilize black voters and other outraged leftists, both in Miami and across the nation, in favor of one of the most radically leftist—and incompetent—presidential candidates in modern memory.
While the defense is busy covering the diversion that the wide receiver creates, quarterback Kamala will be free to slip stealthily across the goal line.
A FAMILIAR PLAYBOOK
We have seen the same strategy trotted out too many times: from Trayvon Martin to Michael Brown to George Floyd—in which those charged with maintaining the safety and security of the public at large are baited by an uncooperative individual into overreacting during an already stressful—and sometimes life-or-death—situation.
However, the racial component, applied sheerly for political purposes, always succeeds in misdirecting casual news consumers by, first, baselessly attributing bigotry to the specific situation, and then using sweeping, dishonest generalizations to imply a broader issue that is unsupported by facts.
There are enough data points now to be able to predict what happens next: Hill’s run-in with the police is but the opening salvo to get the issue of black social-justice activism back on the radar. But that alone won’t be enough.
Indeed, if there were no other catalyzing event to waken the sleeping Black Lives Matter giant, it would almost look as if there had been progress since the 2020 race riots.
Since it would be risky to overdo it under a Democrat administration, in which Vice President Kamala Harris can still be implicated despite her best efforts, the next episode may not rise to George Floyd levels. However, the outrage factor will need to be proportionate to how poorly Harris is faring in the polls following Tuesday’s debate, with the sheen of her newly-minted astroturf campaign now beginning to fade.
It will likely happen in the blue city of a critical swing state—Philadelphia, Atlanta, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Charlotte—or preferably one with a Republican governor who can be tied to former President Donald Trump (e.g. Georgia’s Brian Kemp, given his new détente with the MAGA leader).
Nonetheless, it is worth keeping a watch on developments in the trial of Sean Grayson, the former Sangamon County, Illinois, police officer who was charged with killing Sonya Massey in a July 6 incident as the woman, who had done nothing but take a pot of water from her stove, was fatally shot in her home.
Grayson’s next hearing is scheduled for Oct. 21.
Although footage of the shooting was truly appalling, the timing and location (near Chicago, just weeks before the Democratic National Convention) may have helped it get buried initially. But as with the trial of Darren Wilson, who was acquitted in the August 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, an unsatisfactory verdict may also spark unrest.
One common thread between the 2014 Ferguson riots and the 2024 Kamala Harris campaign: the behind-the-scenes presence of former Attorney General Eric Holder, who looks to ease tensions in racially combustible tinderboxes with the surgical precision of a rubber mallet.
HAPPENSTANCE OR DESIGN?
Are these events staged specifically for the benefit of creating racial strife, or is it more likely that the media will simply cherry-pick stories that fit the narrative and then blow them out of proportion? Maybe both. While I have my own suspicions, I don’t have the evidence to say with any certainty that there is a psy-op conspiracy behind it.
Nonetheless, I would stake my reputation as a political prognosticator on the certainty that there will be one or more racially charged episodes in the coming weeks that will put the social-justice issue front and center, seeking to poach Trump’s tenuous support among black men in particular.
And more than that, I certainly would not stake the fate of the country on the presumption that desperate Democrats would be above doing whatever it takes to sow turmoil and confusion between now and November, ensuring that Americans—minorities in particular—vote with their emotions rather than their reason.
Ben Sellers is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/realbensellers.
