Tyreek Hill learned he isn’t allowed to do what white people do
Tyreek Hill learned he isn’t allowed to do what white people do
The NFL star says his fame helped him get out of a tense situation. But there is little point in denying he was treated differently due to his race
I’ll get downvoted, but the body cam footage I saw showed Tyreek talking back to the officer, refusing instructions by rolling up his window, and telling them not to knock on his car window. It’s not exactly surprising he got yanked out of his car. Go ahead and argue it wouldn’t happen to a white person. I’m not getting into that discussion. Perhaps the cops should have attempted to deescalate, but Tyreek did himself 0 favors. Was not surprised that he found out after fucking around with the cop.
At this point, what you're saying is like telling a woman she shouldn't have been there or wearing that, and ignoring the real issue with power here.
Cops largely are pathetic power-abusing shitheads who escalate at every possible opportunity. You should not have to cower to every whim and demand of a cop if you are not doing anything dangerous. Cops have lost any credibility to suggest that we should have to give a shit about every stupid fucking tiny thing they have an issue with.
Based on your argument, you could say you'll only speak to a lawyer and you're giving the cops an out to beat the shit out of you for not complying. Cops don't understand non-violent approaches to solving any problem, and THAT is the problem to focus on.
Fuck the police.
Sure, fuck the police but I argue a white person or a black person is heading for a bad time if they act the way that he acted. I can’t speculate on this any more than anybody else on “what if” scenarios should Tyreek have been white, but if you create a situation where the cop does not feel safe (e.g. rolling up your 100% tinted windows against their instructions) then you are going to get an escalation from the police.
So you think that we owe abject obedience to authority figures because they might hurt you otherwise but it would still be your fault if they did?
Yeah nah. I thought your comment was probably the reasonable middle ground until I watched the footage too.
The police has 100% needlessly escalated to violence and fully on a power trip. They have not provided any reason for asking the window to be rolled down - nor did they have any. You can see into the car even though there's a lot of glare on the camera, most likely even better vision for a person. They made no attempt to explain any reasoning for the request to persuade him. Once on the ground and being cuffed, they proceeded to shout at him "when we tell you to do something you do it, not what you want". That's not how it works.
He didn't even try to resist the arrest but they treated him with quite a bit of force. They didn't listen at all when he called out he had an injury and needs more time to comply with the order of sitting down.
Yes, Tyreek did himself no favours with his attitude but he has also done absolutely nothing to deserve this treatment. He wasn't even particularly rude to the cops, his mistake seemed to be not to act fully deferential to a cop on a power trip, which is absolutely no reason to treat anyone like this.
Disrespecting a police officer is not an invitation for police brutality. You are a bootlicker for having this mentality.
Police officers should be professionals and try to use the least violent means necessary, and if there is even a hint of excess, they should be deemed unfit to hold the power of authority over others. Police should be reactive on the escalation ladder, only using violence when they receive violence. However, police are given a carte blanche to do violence by claiming in any interaction that they felt threatened, giving them impunity and why we're here today.
It was Tyreek not following directions and making the inside of his car not clearly visible to the officer (despite his requests). That creates a safety problem for the officer. This was the main issue IMO. If words don’t work and the citizen is not cooperating then I’m curious what is the next step besides pulling the guy from his car?
I've been Tyreek and have been picked up on disorderly conduct charges for mocking a police officer to his face. They did not treat me like that. It was all bullshit too, they just wanted to search me thinking I was an easy target.
What you're are saying is the police get your complete obedience no matter what. Frankly, that is just not how humans work. I don't care if you're an authority. If you target me I will feel a way about it.
Edit: BTW charges dropped because being rude is not illegal. Cops don't just get your complete obedience. That is not the law. It may be a norm but we have the power to change norms. To change laws. Don't perpetuate your own oppression.
Okay, I will argue that. Because it wouldn't have happened to a white person. I've seen white people get away with doing a lot more than that to cops.
On occasion, racist cops will violate white folks too. They're never perfectly racist.
Like dodging charges for assaulting his girlfriend in college? Or how about when he beat his kid and told his wife, "Bitch, you should be too" after she said to him, "your son is terrified of you" the proceeded to threaten his wife to lie to the authorities so the charges would be dropped.
He acted like the fucking scum bag he is to the cops and he fuckin got what he deserved. Mother fucker has been dodging charges that any non-athletic white person would never get away with. This piece of shit deserves to get hog tied and strung up like s pinata for his son to break open.
Being rude is protected by the Constitution, as you learned in high school civics class. You did a perfect job of blaming the victim.
On the other hand, maybe what you were trying to say is something like, "We gotta be practically-minded because the cops are dirty racist bastards who will beat the hell out of us."
Being rude is protected, but holeing yourself in the car after committing a crime is not.
The police have to identify, notify, serve and if required detain. Preventing this is obstruction.
Still they handled this in one of the worst possible ways. Obstruction doesn't mean force is required, and specially not before extensive attempts to deescalate.
My dad once rolled his window up on a cop. He told officer to wait because he was on a cell call with my step mom.
He didn't get dragged out of vehicle, the state tropper waited and then gave my dad a huge fine.
Two things this was the 90's in Texas and my dad is white.
I have no problem with rich assholes getting knocked down a peg or two or three.
Keeping your window rolled down during a traffic stop is not an unreasonable demand, especially when it's heavily tinted.
He already provided his license. The officers job was to go back to his vehicle and prepare a citation. Instead they decided to go on a power trip.
Yes it is
You've got plenty of replies already, but I don't see one saying this. You do not have a requirement to be nice to the cops. You have to identify yourself in most states, and you have to provide license and registration. You do no have to (nor should you) answer questions or be polite. The reason they ask questions is to get you to contradict other statements or to otherwise incriminate yourself. Their job is not to protect people. It's to arrest people. It's shitty, but that's the world we're in. We should not defend the state agents who are given this much power over us. It is wrong and indefensible.
disgusting take
I've seen videos of it happening to white people. They are all over youtube. I don't think k he was wrong for first pulling him out, if the police just let you ignore them they couldn't do their jobs, but after that he started power tripping.
Fuck the cops anyways though
The window being all the way down was not a safety issue, but i have zero faith that a court would determine the cops to have used excessive force. I'll see you all at the next post where nothing changes!
I remember a video of a white woman closing the window into a policeman's fingers, driving off (over his foot?) getting forced off the road again, screaming insults at the police, hitting them with the car door, before they resort to, iirc, a taser or dragging her out (might be more than one such video)
So in my mind, that's kind of the 'gold standard' for behaviour which only leads to slow incremental steps in the use of force.
when everyone and their mother has a gun in the U.S., and you're hiding behind heavily tinted windows, then yes, it is a safety issue. It's not an unreasonable request to keep your window rolled down during a traffic stop.
Don't take the job if you ain't willing to take a bullet over a traffic stop. That's the job. You don't get to violate rights for your own safety. Your safety is secondary as a cop. If you can't handle that fact of the position then you would be a shit cop.
Pizza delivery drivers have a higher chance to get shot than a fucking cop and yet you don't hear pizza drivers capping people left and right for their own safety. So I don't wanna hear your bullshit.
Die for that traffic stop pig. You wanted the badge without the risk.
As we saw, it's actually a bigger safety issue if the cops can order you to lower your window. Fortunately, you and I don't get to decide what's "reasonable" in this context. It would go to the appeals courts, and who knows what would happen.
I think it's likely that the appeals courts would say that Pennsylvania v. Mimms already let cops order people out of the car, which solves the safety problem, so there's no need to give cops extra authority to order you around willy-nilly. The ordinary person has a clear interest in knowing what exactly cops can and can't order, and you're proposing increasing the ambiguity of it all, which (as we just saw) is dangerous.
I think Tyreek is a piece of shit, but these officers didn't handle this very well either.
I'll be honest, I've seen plenty of these types of stops on YouTube, I know guilty pleasure, and once he rolled up that window, Black, White, Chinese, Indian, you were going to get pulled out and arrested for contempt of cop.
Don't get me wrong, police do racially profile and harass Black people disproportionally and are racists assholes but the traffic stop? I don't think race played as much of a factor than just good ol' fragile cop ego where a white guy showing the same behavior would have been mostly the same thing happen, just that the white guy would have been in no danger of being killed but gun or suffocation.
It also wouldn’t have made the news. We wouldn’t be talking about a white cop violating a white persons rights either.