Tyreek Hill is a talented wide receiver in the National Football League. He was originally drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs in 2016 and in 2022 joined the Miami Dolphins. Hill also has a major personal scandal. During his college football career at Oklahoma State, he was arrested and pleaded guilty to domestic violence against his girlfriend. Upon that conviction, Hill was dismissed from both the football and track and field teams.

Subsequently, his violent streak continued. In 2019, he was under investigation for child abuse against his three-year-old son. The judge wasn’t able to find enough proof of who the abuser was, so the case went cold. In 2023, Hill settled out of court. This past February, Hill was sued by Instagram model Sophie Hall, whom Hill allegedly tackled full force, severely fracturing her leg.

All this leads to the latest incident this past weekend. On Sunday, just three hours before the Dolphins’ season opener, Hill was caught in a police speed trap and pulled over. The NFL star acted uncooperatively toward the police officers, refusing to keep his windows rolled down after the stop (which is a police officer safety issue). As a result, he was pulled out of his car and handcuffed. He continued to mouth off on the curb.

Tyreek Hill body camera footage is out. pic.twitter.com/j6nVAFViZ6

— OutKick (@Outkick) September 9, 2024

The story gets worse. Hill’s teammates — defensive lineman Calais Campbell and tight end Jonnu Smith — also decided to get out of their vehicles and try to intervene on behalf of Hill. The police told them to leave. They didn’t and were also handcuffed.

Tyreek Hill was handcuffed for his defiance of lawful police orders. It was he, not the police, who was in the wrong. He was speeding, he refused to comply with the police, and he got cuffed.

But the petulance didn’t stop there. He decided to float the “racially motivated” bad-cop routine right away by posing the question, “What if I wasn’t Tyreek Hill?” The media, which can’t let a good race story be ignored, gladly spun that narrative.

It’s worth noting that the main police officer whom Hill interacted with is Hispanic. But according to critical race theory, he’s white and racist because of the internalized racism that comes with being a police officer. Yeah.

The Dolphins released a statement saying, “We are saddened by the overly aggressive and violent conduct directed towards Tyreek Hill, Calais Campbell and Jonnu Smith by the police officers before yesterday’s game. It is both maddening and heartbreaking to watch the very people we trust to protect our community use such unnecessary force and hostility towards these players.”

From the Miami Dolphins… pic.twitter.com/GIOhjFs2Q2

— Armando Salguero (@ArmandoSalguero) September 10, 2024

When Hill made the rounds on TV, he told CNN, “We tried it all. We protested. We took a knee. What’s next?” Clearly, he is content to stir up racial strife and bad blood with the police over a routine stop wherein he was at fault at every step.

To quote conservative pundit Matt Walsh, “What happened to Hill is that on Sunday, he endured a minor inconvenience that was entirely attributable to his own actions. This was such a minor inconvenience that he was able to play in a football game afterwards and mock the whole situation with a celebration after he scored a touchdown.”

As many have pointed out, it’s not 2020 anymore. People are sick of the riots and violence that come with such stunts. Basketball legend Charles Barkley called out the media and Tyreek Hill, saying:

I hate that we’re gonna throw it in the media because you know the guys are gonna quickly go to race, and it bothers me. … We got so many fools in the media who love to play the race card. I said, “Wait a minute, they just did the same thing to Scottie Scheffler.” … The one thing you can’t do as a celebrity, you can’t say, “You know who I am?” … You say, “Yes, sir.” Cooperate 100%. And, like I said, I don’t know what happened, but … when we let these fools on TV and the radio start talking about it, they go straight to, “Was it racism?” I’m like, well, wait a minute now, we don’t know that. And I saw the police report say he was uncooperative. … But the one thing I hate [is] when we put stuff in the media and we let guys who race bait start throwing stuff out there. Like I say, wait a minute, the same thing just happened to Scottie Scheffler, who actually went [and] got booked! … He went down to the big house!

The public outcry against Hill has been predominantly negative (and for good reason). This public pressure prompted him to come forward Wednesday and half apologize in a conference with the local press. Hill confessed: “My whole life is all about accountability. How can I get better? I will say I could have been better. I could have let down my window in that instant. But the thing about me is, man, I don’t want attention. I don’t want [there] to be cameras out, phones on you in that moment — but at the end of the day, I’m human. I’ve got to follow rules. I got to do what everyone else would do. Now, does that give them the right to literally beat the dog out of me? Absolutely not. But at the end of the day, I wish I could go back and do things a bit differently.”

Hill wants to have his cake and eat it, too. He wants to appease fans by acknowledging that his behavior “could have been better.” Talk about an understatement. But he also accused the police of “beat[ing] the dog out of me.” That is not what happened, and everyone can see that.

It’s a tale of race bait and cop hate, of the NFL putting player narrative above community safety. Worst of all, it’s the story of a man with a pattern of violent and disruptive behavior making life more difficult for himself and everyone around him. He’s no one’s hero.