October 4, 2024 • 24 mins
Can a single traffic stop alter the public's perception of law enforcement? Join us as we dissect the controversial encounter between NFL star Tyreek Hill and the Miami Police Department. Hill's reckless driving and subsequent non-compliance led to a heated confrontation, leaving many to question the actions taken by both parties. We analyze the professionalism of the officers involved, the demands for their termination by Hill, and what this incident reveals about the broader societal expectations placed on our police.
READ THE ARTICLE BY BRIAN ELLIS & TRAVIS YATES
Throughout the episode, we explore the implications of this incident, emphasizing the critical role of emotional intelligence and proper training for law enforcement. We reflect on how such high-profile encounters can impact police morale and recruitment, while also holding individuals accountable for their behavior during police interactions. This discussion goes beyond the surface to examine the deeper issues at play, urging a balanced and honest conversation about the responsibilities and challenges faced by both law enforcement and the public.
Finally, we draw parallels between the reactions of the Miami Dolphins and the police department, highlighting the double standards that often exist. By critiquing media coverage and stressing the importance of transparent communication, we advocate for honest discussions that can lead to better understanding and improved relations between law enforcement and citizens. Don't miss this provocative episode of Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates, where we tackle the complexities of policing in today's world.
Join Our Tribe of Courageous Leaders:
Get The Book
Get Weekly Articles by Travis Yates
Join Us At Our Website
Get Our 'Courageous Leadership' Training
Join The Courageous Police Leadership Alliance
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates,
where leaders find the insights,advice and encouragement they
need to lead courageously.
Travis Yates (00:12):
Welcome back to the show.
I'm so honored that you werespending a few minutes with us
here today and I didn't want tokeep talking about issues like
this, but it just simply keepshappening.
I frankly don't understandwhat's going on with law
enforcement leadership.
Sometimes you see theseincidents across the country
(00:33):
where there just isn't aquestion about how we should act
and we just keep doing the samething over and over again.
Yes, I'm here today to talkabout the Tyreek Hill incident,
the NFL player for the MiamiDolphins that was stopped on a
traffic stop.
Most of you have seen the video.
I want to recommend an articlethat I authored along with Brian
(00:55):
Ellis over atthebraveryblueprintcom.
Hit that website.
You'll see the article at thetop.
I'll put a link in the shownotes.
I want to cover a few items, afew extra items that we didn't
cover in the top.
I'll put a link in the shownotes.
I wanted to cover a few items,a few extra items that we didn't
cover in the article, of course.
To bring you up to speed, TyreekHill was stopped for speeding
before Sunday's NFL footballgame.
(01:16):
The officer walked up there,there was an altercation.
One thing leads to another.
They pull him out of the car,they handcuff him and everyone
loses their mind.
Tyreek Hill, who acted like anabsolute child, is calling for
the officer's termination.
As the week has gone on, he issort of at the same time he's
doubling down calling for theofficer's termination.
(01:37):
He's also saying that he madesome mistakes and he could do
things better.
But I want the officer fired.
Pretty unique, because ifTyreek Hill used that standard
on himself, he would have beenfired from the NFL long ago from
his alleged violent crimes inhis past.
But let me just tell you howsimple this could have been from
a leadership standpoint toaddress and how I still haven't
(01:58):
heard anything from the MiamiPolice Department other than
they've suspended the officer,which is kind of insane.
Let's just break this down andwe'll talk about it.
So here's what we know and keepin mind.
We know a lot more today thanthe officers knew on that day.
Officers around this country arecharged with making
split-second decisions based onlimited information.
(02:20):
But here's the information theyhad at the time.
They allegedly clocked and Isay allegedly because there's
sort of different stories outthere, but I've got a pretty
good source that tells me thisbut I'm going to say allegedly
he was going 120 miles an hourin a 40-mile-an-hour zone and
then, allegedly, he was alsogoing 60 miles an hour in a
construction zone.
(02:40):
So it was a reckless drivingstop.
And, by the way, mostjurisdictions on reckless
driving you have a choicebetween a citation or an arrest.
That's how serious that chargeis.
The officers walk up to the car,stop nothing out of the
ordinary.
I mean, it was a Lamborghini,but they're in Miami.
(03:02):
I'm certain they run acrossthose cars all the time.
The officer walks up and thewindows rolled up.
Now listen, this is the firstindicator that something's weird
.
Okay, let's just be honest here.
Tyreek Hill is an adult.
He knows exactly how to actwhen he stopped by law
enforcement.
Everybody does.
Whether you're stopped or not,you know that you don't keep
your window rolled up.
In fact, you can go to variouswebsites out there, from the
ACLU to every lawyer, and theywill give you instructions on
(03:24):
how to act when you're stoppedby the police, and it generally
says something like this rollyour window down, have access to
your driver's license,insurance in one place, and you
know, follow what the officersays, whatever it's there's just
everyone knows.
Let's not act like Tyreek Hillis some mentally challenged
person that just has no clue howto act.
(03:45):
We know how you're supposed toact, but nevertheless his window
is rolled up.
So the officer did what anyofficer in America would do.
I'm going to keep coming backto this because we're acting
like this is some sort ofoutlier event.
This is some sort of horrificpolice activity.
Now at a point I'm going tochange my tone, but up until now
the officer did what anyofficer in America would do.
(04:06):
They would knock on the windowand ask for them to roll the
window down.
Of course Tyreek Hill rolls itdown a little bit.
These are tinted windows so youcan't see inside.
He rolls it down a little bit,barking, orders and screaming
and yelling and talking aboutwhy he had to knock on his
window.
Yada, yada, yada.
It's ridiculous, right.
What's the officer supposed todo?
Stand there while his window'srolled up?
(04:29):
Of course he's going to knockon the window and if you watch
the video, the officer was veryprofessional, trying to get the
information.
Of course Hill was barking theentire time.
He finally gets his driver'slicense and as soon as he gets
it he'll roll the window back up.
The officer then says, knockson the window and tells him to
(04:51):
roll the window down.
And here's where it gets crazy,and everybody seems to be
ignoring this part.
10 different commands weregiven to Tyreek Hill in
combination of roll your windowdown about seven times and then
it turned to get out of the car.
He never complied.
He never complied and everybodythat's out there.
I've seen all these crazyarticles you know talking about.
(05:14):
We should do this differently.
Well, I would ask, how wouldyou do it?
Show me a training class inAmerican law enforcement today
that says you want some of thewindows, keep the window rolled
down during a during a trafficstop.
Show me that class.
And then, when you show me thatclass, tell me what that class
tells people to do.
When that happens, just standthere, just say, well, I guess I
(05:35):
don't need him to roll hiswindow down.
I'll transpose this ticketthrough the glass to him, I'll
communicate through telepathic,whatever.
It's all so ridiculous and Ijust love it how so-called
leadership gurus out there areout there saying this crazy
stuff.
I even heard this one.
Well, if he wasn't Tyreek Hill,who knows what would have
(05:56):
happened?
Let me tell you what would havehappened if it wasn't Tyreek
Hill.
The same exact thing would havehappened, he would have gone to
jail.
That's what would have happened.
From what I I understand, hedidn't go to jail.
Probably their intent was to goto jail and they probably ended
up writing him a ticket and hewent on to the game and scored
touchdowns right and mocked theofficers after his touchdown.
It's so ridiculous to to actlike this has something to do
(06:19):
with race or something to dowith you know, bad cops.
How do the officers even knowwhat race he is?
Are you blind and you don't seethat these windows are
completely tinted?
And how do you discount 10commands to follow orders and he
defies them?
So my question is to all ofthese people out there with
(06:42):
their Monday morning quarterbackhow many commands do you give?
10, 20, 30?
How many times do you ask himto roll the window down and he
doesn't do it?
How many times you ask him getout of the car and he doesn't do
it?
Tell me a number.
Tell me a number that wouldsatisfy you, because I'll tell
you right where I work.
(07:04):
We don't ask 10 times, we ask afew times, and that exact same
thing would have happened.
I've lost a good friend at acar stop like this, because we
were up at the car for 10 or 15minutes trying to get compliance
and everybody listening to thisin law enforcement.
If you've been in lawenforcement for a number of
years, you know of people thathave lost their lives due to
(07:25):
this.
Now I know what all the mediasays.
They're going to say oh, travisis out here saying everybody's
trying to kill him.
No, I'm not saying that.
But I'm saying if you want tobadmouth the officers, give me
the solution.
Tell me what you would havedone.
Would you have sat there andjust asked nicely, 25 times?
So they asked him 10 times.
Finally, when they asked him toget out of the car and he
(07:48):
refuses again they extract himfrom the car.
Now I want to know one trainingclass that says not to do it
that way.
Tell me a training class thatwhen somebody defies 10 commands
inside a vehicle, that you'rethat continues to defy.
By the way, he never complied,even when they pulled him out of
(08:08):
the car.
They had to forcefully pull himout of the car and he had to.
He didn't even comply, givinghis hands behind his back.
So he never actually compliedin his traffic stop, except for
initially when he rode thewindow down a little bit, which
isn't full compliance.
So I want to know the onetraining class you're going to
hang your hat on that says weshould have done something
different, because what I sawwas very standard behavior for
(08:30):
somebody that acts that way.
Let me tell you how unordinaryand uncommon this stop was.
In 30 years of law enforcement,I have never had anybody act
like that.
I've had people have theirwindows rolled up, I would ask,
and they roll the windows down.
I have never had anybody dothat, and most of you in law
enforcement haven't either.
(08:51):
That's how odd this was.
In fact, you even see theofficer when he knocked on the
window and he doesn't roll down.
He kind of looks back at theother officers like what's going
on here?
That's how odd it is.
In fact, that's the image wehave on the article at the
bravery blueprint, because youcan tell he locks up.
He just looks back at theofficers like what in the world
is going on?
Because that is not how peopleact.
(09:13):
There's been a lot said about ohwell, Tyreek Hill was scared
because he was a black man beingstopped by the law enforcement.
Well, if he was scared, hecertainly didn't act like it.
He was defiant, he wascombative, he was argumentative.
He certainly didn't act like it.
I've stopped people that werefearful of law enforcement and
(09:34):
they don't act that way andnormally you can immediately
tell and you can try to put themat ease.
And they're certainly trying tobe compliant.
They're nervous.
I get that.
That's not how he was acting.
This whole thing is absolutenonsense.
Now people say, well, theofficer shouldn't have been
verbally abusive.
I agree with you and I wouldask you Where's Hill's
(09:58):
responsibility in that?
Because the officers mirroredhis verbal behavior.
That was clear.
I'm not saying the officerswere right when it comes to the
verbal behavior, but hey, listen, these things occur.
We can deal with these things.
This is a training issue.
It's emotional intelligence,it's dealing with stress.
We understand that.
But some of that comes from justthe sheer weirdness of this.
(10:22):
Stop.
I can guarantee you thoseofficers had never dealt with
that before.
We've dealt with a lot ofthings in law enforcement, but
that was so out of the ordinaryand Hill has to take
responsibility for that.
And it's just odd to me that hesomehow wants these officers
fired because he doesn't likehow he was treated.
(10:42):
Well, there was a way he couldhave been treated very
professionally, but he didn'treally give him that opportunity
and the whole thing, the wholething is just silly to me.
Nobody's saying that.
Everybody is running to theircomputer screens and talking
about how the officers is theofficers that I had one guy say
(11:05):
well, do you know that theofficer was suspended six times
in the last 10 years?
What does that have to do withthis?
Stop?
That's a whole nother thing totalk about.
Granted, what does that have todo with this?
Stop?
Do you actually believe that ifan officer would have walked up
there that hadn't beensuspended, he would have acted
differently?
He had no idea who the officerwas right?
(11:25):
So we need to just be honestabout this and this is why law
enforcement is going down thispath.
Miami pd, do you do?
Your future recruits arewatching this, they're seeing
this and your silence tells themall they need to know.
Now am I saying that you comeout and you glorify these
(11:47):
officers?
No, but you had every power toget this accurate narrative out
there and you failed.
You had body cameras of whathappened Before that game was
over.
That night.
You should have come out withthat body camera footage and
explained to the public why theofficers had to act in the way
they did.
I'm not making excuses, foronce they got him handcuffed and
(12:11):
they were jawing back and forthwith him.
They were obviously visiblyupset.
This is what happens sometimesin human performance.
Right, that's not the indicatorof an officer's career or
someone's moral values.
These things tend to happensometimes.
We should train on that, weshould talk about that, we
should be better at that.
But being like Chick-fil-A onlygoes so far.
It just does Okay.
(12:33):
And if you're human, youunderstand.
How do you completely discounthow Tyreek Hill acts, with no
stress other than being stopped?
By the way, what did he thinkwas going to happen?
Going 120 miles an hour?
Should he not have expected tobe stopped by law enforcement?
This is nothing more than aspoiled brat acting out.
(12:54):
But most of the talk I've seenhas been putting it on law
enforcement.
Are you not tired of being beatup like this for these silly
things?
I know I am.
I'm tired of leaders justletting us get beat up.
Why am I the one talking aboutit?
I say this constantly.
Why am I the one trying todefend the Miami Police
Department?
It is just absolutelyridiculous.
(13:18):
We should be past this.
We certainly should be pastthis.
Now I know some people willlisten to this and go oh, Yates
is an apologist for all lawenforcement, or Yates is an
apologist.
No, I just told you there was acertain point in that stop I
don't agree with, and that's theverbal altercation the officer
(13:39):
started having back with him.
Let knuckleheads act like that.
We don't act like that.
No, I'm not a completeapologist.
But if you want me to believethat it was normal for someone
to disobey 10 commands, I evenhad somebody say well, they
should have asked differently.
Okay, what do you suggest?
Do you think if you'd havewalked up there like a
(14:00):
Chick-fil-A my pleasure 10 times, he would have changed his mind
?
Are you kidding me?
They started off acting thatway.
If you watch the video and getthe emotion out of your head,
they started off very polite hey, roll your window down.
He escalated the situation.
Well, they should havedeescalated out here.
Yeah, but it takes two todeescalate.
(14:21):
How are you going tode-escalate this guy?
He never followed commands Ever.
If you watch the video, play byplay.
He never followed commands andI counted them.
There were 10 different commandsto do what they wanted and I
would subject to you that if, atany time, he would have
complied, we wouldn't be talkingabout it.
(14:41):
If, at command eight, he wouldhave rolled his window down and
done what they said we wouldn'tbe talking about?
Then I hear this Well, hedoesn't have to comply.
Then you don't know the law,because as soon as he refused to
roll his window down, that'scalled obstruction and that's a
misdemeanor charge.
When you're reckless driving,that's a misdemeanor charge.
So no, he had to comply.
There's no getting out of thatone.
Okay, he's either going tocomply or they're going to make
(15:04):
him comply.
And when I looked at what I saw, they made him comply.
Okay, people just don't likewhat they saw.
Well, you could not like whatyou saw.
But how is that the fault ofthe officers?
When that was escalated byTyree Hill?
Now, I don't even know thisTyreek Hill.
Apparently he's a pretty goodplayer, but he's a kid and he's
a dumb kid at that and he's gotprobably a little bit of I'm
(15:26):
better than you attitude thatcame.
That was very clear.
Listen, I I'm not.
That's just the way it issometimes.
But you cannot any person,whether you're Tyreek Hill or
anybody you cannot act that wayand expect anything short of
what happened.
You just can't.
They gave him seven or eightcommands to roll the window down
he refused.
They gave him two or eightcommands to roll the window down
he refused.
(15:46):
They gave him two or threecommands to get out of the car
before, finally, somebody saidwe're getting him out of the car
Because they were tired ofwaiting around.
Because you know what happensif you never get that compliance
.
By the way, do you think theywould have ever gotten a
citation signed?
He was never rolling the windowdown and we can all Monday
morning quarterback this downand we can all monday morning
quarterback this and we know allthis information now.
(16:07):
But if you take a look at thatvideo based on what they know, I
don't know how you come to theconclusion that these officers
need to be fired.
Are you joking?
Are you kidding me?
The?
The truth is, if this wasn'tTyreek Hill, none of that would
be happening, because mostnormal citizens understand you
(16:30):
can't act that way.
Okay, he wasn't beaten, hewasn't bruised.
He had some ugly things said tohim after he berated the
officers.
I don't agree with that.
But does that occur sometimes?
Let's's be honest, it does,because you're dealing with
human beings out there underhigh-stress situations that
don't even understand why thishad to happen.
(16:51):
I can guarantee you the lastthing the officers wanted that
day was that altercation.
But it was Tyreek Hill thatcaused the altercation and I
don't understand how people aremissing that.
It's easy to just blame the cops, right, miami?
Miami Dolphins, you embarrassedyourself with that letter you
wrote.
You absolutely embarrassedyourself.
I mean, I don't even.
(17:14):
I don't even understand yourmentality and, by the way, part
of me respects what miami did.
I'm not going to read theletter, but they basically threw
the officer into the bus anddefended tyreek hill, or what
you saw on that video, which isinsane.
But part of me respects themfor defending their player.
What if law enforcement did that?
Not just defend people todefend them, but defend them
(17:35):
when they need to be defended.
What if law enforcement leadershad the same energy to defend
their employees as an NFL teamdoes?
Wouldn't that be something?
Wouldn't that be something?
If you know, a couple hoursafter this incident, when they
hit Twitter, the Miami PoliceDepartment put this video out
and explained to the publicstep-by-step what happened and
why the officers acted the waythey did.
(17:56):
Because I know, and they knowthis those officers were trained
to do that very thing.
Show me something they weren't.
Show me a training class whereyou aren't.
Show me something they weren't.
Show me a training class whereyou aren't.
Show me.
The Miami Police Department,like every other police
department, is trained thatnoncompliance, repeated
noncompliance, increases thedanger of all involved, and they
(18:16):
need to get compliance asquickly as possible.
And they asked 10 times nocompliance.
They then finally did the onething to make everybody safe,
which is to get handcuffs on himand then figure out what's
going on.
They did that very thing.
So I want to see if Miami PoliceDepartment wants to continue to
be outraged by what theirofficer did.
Show me the training class thatsays something.
(18:38):
Otherwise, good luck with that,because you're not going to
show me a training classcommissioned by any
accreditation agency that sayswe should just stand up there
like Chick-fil-A for 15 minutesand be nice to people when
they're defying commands.
You're not going to find that,and so I just think that we got
to be honest about this.
We just do.
Hey, the ship sailed on thisone.
(19:00):
The story that everyone's goingto know is Tyreek Hill's story
or ESPN's story.
The story I just told no one'sgoing to know is Tyreek Hill's
story or ESPN's story, the storyI just told?
No one's going to know, and Iwant to be very clear, because
the media is corrupt and themedia loves to twist everything
up.
So let me be very clear.
The initial actions by theofficer were in line with law
(19:21):
enforcement training across thiscountry, point blank.
If you want to argue with me,bring the training to me.
I do not agree with the verbalonslaught the officers had, but
I would also submit to youthat's probably a very natural
reaction if we let emotion getto us, Tyreek Hill, let emotion
get to him, we let emotion getto us, and we shouldn't do that.
We can be better than that andwe need to be better than that.
(19:43):
But stop with all the rhetoricyou're saying on this.
Okay, just stop.
And, by the way, it doesn't doany favors for the motoring
public, because kids arewatching this and what do they
think?
Well, I can just do the samething.
No, that puts you in more dangerbecause officers don't know a
(20:06):
lot of information.
There's limited information onthese traffic stops.
You don't need to do that.
If you want to argue, you wantto complain?
There are processes set up todo that.
It's called internal affairs,it's called the courts, it's
called you can get an attorneyand sue.
You can do a bunch of things toargue what you don't think is
(20:27):
right, but that that is not thetime.
That's what most grown adultsbelieve.
That's what mature adultsbelieve, that these kids are
looking to Tyreek Hill andthat's the behavior they're
seeing and he ought to be veryclear about that because we do
not want people to emulate that.
From the officer standpoint andthe citizen standpoint,
(20:50):
compliance matters.
I know that's that's sort of adirty word, but compliance does
matter.
Tyreek Hill would never actthat way around his coaches.
He knows how to act aroundauthority.
So why did this happen?
You ask him, because it wascompletely out of bounds,
completely out of line and weneed to learn from it.
(21:11):
But I'm afraid no one's goingto learn from it because
everyone's taking one side andthere's a balance here, right,
like the balance I just gave you.
The officers acted accordinglyto a certain point.
If I was reviewing videofootage of one of my officers
and I watched them, let somebodybe noncompliant for 10 times
(21:33):
and just sat there and didnothing, I would be pretty upset
.
I would be pretty upset becauseyou've got to take action at
some point.
You have an arrestable offense,they're noncompliant, you're
going to get them in handcuffs.
They don't want to submit tohandcuffs and you get them in
handcuffs.
It's just that simple and youcan not like that.
All you want Well, you've beenasleep for the last 50 years.
This is law enforcement.
(21:54):
You can either comply and getarrested or they will arrest you
and they'll put handcuffs onyou.
We and me would prefer youwould just comply.
Nobody wants the alternative.
Nothing good seems to everhappen.
Hence I'm talking about this.
But we need to stop being sillyJust stop.
(22:15):
We need some honesty in theseconversations, but nobody's
willing to give it.
That's all I had today.
I think Brian Ellis did a greatjob on this article.
I'm going to link this up.
It probably gives you a moresuccinct overall view than what
I just said, and I think there'sthings for everybody to learn.
Hopefully I covered.
Link this up.
It probably gives you a moresuccinct overall view than what
I just said, and I think there'sthings for everybody to learn.
(22:36):
Hopefully I covered that TyreekHill needs to learn.
From a law enforcementstandpoint, we should learn, and
from an organizationalstandpoint, we should learn.
There's ways to handle this.
If you're not sure of this,reach out to me, because you
should be gaming this before ithappens.
Like as soon as I saw this ontwitter you know an hour so
after it happened I immediatelysaid let's wait for the body
camera footage.
It should be out in a couplehours because if I was the miami
police department, I would havecollated that body camera
(22:57):
footage.
I would put it out whether theofficer was right, whether the
officer was wrong.
Let's be transparent, put itout.
They didn't do that for a longtime and they still, to my
knowledge, have never commentedon that.
Which wrong.
You don't just put out a bodycamera footage and let everybody
make up their own mind.
You've got to give them somedirection, because I don't
expect the general public tounderstand police tactics.
(23:17):
I don't expect any of that.
I don't expect them tounderstand how dangerous it is
for somebody to act the wayTyreek Hill acted and why
officers need to get that personin custody as quickly as
possible.
So that needs to be someexplaining to people.
But it didn't happen.
So pretty silly.
But I can guarantee you anybodyin law enforcement listening to
(23:38):
this.
Let me just leave you with thisone.
I bet you've never dealt withthat, or if you did, you did
exactly what you saw.
You extracted him from the carand got handcuffs on him because
you don't know what's going on.
You got to figure it out, so itwas such an odd.
The fact that no one's talkingabout that is just strange to me
.
That would never cross my mindfrom a motoring citizen to do
(24:01):
that.
That just seems so insane.
So a lot to think about.
A lot to talk about.
Thanks for listening.
Just remember lead on.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Thank you for listening to Courageous
Leadership with Travis Yates.
We invite you to join othercourageous leaders at www.
travisyates.
org.
Welcome to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates,
where leaders find the insights,advice and encouragement they
need to lead courageously.
Travis Yates (00:12):
Welcome back to the show.
I'm so honored that you werespending a few minutes with us
here today and I didn't want tokeep talking about issues like
this, but it just simply keepshappening.
I frankly don't understandwhat's going on with law
enforcement leadership.
Sometimes you see theseincidents across the country
(00:33):
where there just isn't aquestion about how we should act
and we just keep doing the samething over and over again.
Yes, I'm here today to talkabout the Tyreek Hill incident,
the NFL player for the MiamiDolphins that was stopped on a
traffic stop.
Most of you have seen the video.
I want to recommend an articlethat I authored along with Brian
(00:55):
Ellis over atthebraveryblueprintcom.
Hit that website.
You'll see the article at thetop.
I'll put a link in the shownotes.
I want to cover a few items, afew extra items that we didn't
cover in the top.
I'll put a link in the shownotes.
I wanted to cover a few items,a few extra items that we didn't
cover in the article, of course.
To bring you up to speed, TyreekHill was stopped for speeding
before Sunday's NFL footballgame.
(01:16):
The officer walked up there,there was an altercation.
One thing leads to another.
They pull him out of the car,they handcuff him and everyone
loses their mind.
Tyreek Hill, who acted like anabsolute child, is calling for
the officer's termination.
As the week has gone on, he issort of at the same time he's
doubling down calling for theofficer's termination.
(01:37):
He's also saying that he madesome mistakes and he could do
things better.
But I want the officer fired.
Pretty unique, because ifTyreek Hill used that standard
on himself, he would have beenfired from the NFL long ago from
his alleged violent crimes inhis past.
But let me just tell you howsimple this could have been from
a leadership standpoint toaddress and how I still haven't
(01:58):
heard anything from the MiamiPolice Department other than
they've suspended the officer,which is kind of insane.
Let's just break this down andwe'll talk about it.
So here's what we know and keepin mind.
We know a lot more today thanthe officers knew on that day.
Officers around this country arecharged with making
split-second decisions based onlimited information.
(02:20):
But here's the information theyhad at the time.
They allegedly clocked and Isay allegedly because there's
sort of different stories outthere, but I've got a pretty
good source that tells me thisbut I'm going to say allegedly
he was going 120 miles an hourin a 40-mile-an-hour zone and
then, allegedly, he was alsogoing 60 miles an hour in a
construction zone.
(02:40):
So it was a reckless drivingstop.
And, by the way, mostjurisdictions on reckless
driving you have a choicebetween a citation or an arrest.
That's how serious that chargeis.
The officers walk up to the car,stop nothing out of the
ordinary.
I mean, it was a Lamborghini,but they're in Miami.
(03:02):
I'm certain they run acrossthose cars all the time.
The officer walks up and thewindows rolled up.
Now listen, this is the firstindicator that something's weird
.
Okay, let's just be honest here.
Tyreek Hill is an adult.
He knows exactly how to actwhen he stopped by law
enforcement.
Everybody does.
Whether you're stopped or not,you know that you don't keep
your window rolled up.
In fact, you can go to variouswebsites out there, from the
ACLU to every lawyer, and theywill give you instructions on
(03:24):
how to act when you're stoppedby the police, and it generally
says something like this rollyour window down, have access to
your driver's license,insurance in one place, and you
know, follow what the officersays, whatever it's there's just
everyone knows.
Let's not act like Tyreek Hillis some mentally challenged
person that just has no clue howto act.
(03:45):
We know how you're supposed toact, but nevertheless his window
is rolled up.
So the officer did what anyofficer in America would do.
I'm going to keep coming backto this because we're acting
like this is some sort ofoutlier event.
This is some sort of horrificpolice activity.
Now at a point I'm going tochange my tone, but up until now
the officer did what anyofficer in America would do.
(04:06):
They would knock on the windowand ask for them to roll the
window down.
Of course Tyreek Hill rolls itdown a little bit.
These are tinted windows so youcan't see inside.
He rolls it down a little bit,barking, orders and screaming
and yelling and talking aboutwhy he had to knock on his
window.
Yada, yada, yada.
It's ridiculous, right.
What's the officer supposed todo?
Stand there while his window'srolled up?
(04:29):
Of course he's going to knockon the window and if you watch
the video, the officer was veryprofessional, trying to get the
information.
Of course Hill was barking theentire time.
He finally gets his driver'slicense and as soon as he gets
it he'll roll the window back up.
The officer then says, knockson the window and tells him to
(04:51):
roll the window down.
And here's where it gets crazy,and everybody seems to be
ignoring this part.
10 different commands weregiven to Tyreek Hill in
combination of roll your windowdown about seven times and then
it turned to get out of the car.
He never complied.
He never complied and everybodythat's out there.
I've seen all these crazyarticles you know talking about.
(05:14):
We should do this differently.
Well, I would ask, how wouldyou do it?
Show me a training class inAmerican law enforcement today
that says you want some of thewindows, keep the window rolled
down during a during a trafficstop.
Show me that class.
And then, when you show me thatclass, tell me what that class
tells people to do.
When that happens, just standthere, just say, well, I guess I
(05:35):
don't need him to roll hiswindow down.
I'll transpose this ticketthrough the glass to him, I'll
communicate through telepathic,whatever.
It's all so ridiculous and Ijust love it how so-called
leadership gurus out there areout there saying this crazy
stuff.
I even heard this one.
Well, if he wasn't Tyreek Hill,who knows what would have
(05:56):
happened?
Let me tell you what would havehappened if it wasn't Tyreek
Hill.
The same exact thing would havehappened, he would have gone to
jail.
That's what would have happened.
From what I I understand, hedidn't go to jail.
Probably their intent was to goto jail and they probably ended
up writing him a ticket and hewent on to the game and scored
touchdowns right and mocked theofficers after his touchdown.
It's so ridiculous to to actlike this has something to do
(06:19):
with race or something to dowith you know, bad cops.
How do the officers even knowwhat race he is?
Are you blind and you don't seethat these windows are
completely tinted?
And how do you discount 10commands to follow orders and he
defies them?
So my question is to all ofthese people out there with
(06:42):
their Monday morning quarterbackhow many commands do you give?
10, 20, 30?
How many times do you ask himto roll the window down and he
doesn't do it?
How many times you ask him getout of the car and he doesn't do
it?
Tell me a number.
Tell me a number that wouldsatisfy you, because I'll tell
you right where I work.
(07:04):
We don't ask 10 times, we ask afew times, and that exact same
thing would have happened.
I've lost a good friend at acar stop like this, because we
were up at the car for 10 or 15minutes trying to get compliance
and everybody listening to thisin law enforcement.
If you've been in lawenforcement for a number of
years, you know of people thathave lost their lives due to
(07:25):
this.
Now I know what all the mediasays.
They're going to say oh, travisis out here saying everybody's
trying to kill him.
No, I'm not saying that.
But I'm saying if you want tobadmouth the officers, give me
the solution.
Tell me what you would havedone.
Would you have sat there andjust asked nicely, 25 times?
So they asked him 10 times.
Finally, when they asked him toget out of the car and he
(07:48):
refuses again they extract himfrom the car.
Now I want to know one trainingclass that says not to do it
that way.
Tell me a training class thatwhen somebody defies 10 commands
inside a vehicle, that you'rethat continues to defy.
By the way, he never complied,even when they pulled him out of
(08:08):
the car.
They had to forcefully pull himout of the car and he had to.
He didn't even comply, givinghis hands behind his back.
So he never actually compliedin his traffic stop, except for
initially when he rode thewindow down a little bit, which
isn't full compliance.
So I want to know the onetraining class you're going to
hang your hat on that says weshould have done something
different, because what I sawwas very standard behavior for
(08:30):
somebody that acts that way.
Let me tell you how unordinaryand uncommon this stop was.
In 30 years of law enforcement,I have never had anybody act
like that.
I've had people have theirwindows rolled up, I would ask,
and they roll the windows down.
I have never had anybody dothat, and most of you in law
enforcement haven't either.
(08:51):
That's how odd this was.
In fact, you even see theofficer when he knocked on the
window and he doesn't roll down.
He kind of looks back at theother officers like what's going
on here?
That's how odd it is.
In fact, that's the image wehave on the article at the
bravery blueprint, because youcan tell he locks up.
He just looks back at theofficers like what in the world
is going on?
Because that is not how peopleact.
(09:13):
There's been a lot said about ohwell, Tyreek Hill was scared
because he was a black man beingstopped by the law enforcement.
Well, if he was scared, hecertainly didn't act like it.
He was defiant, he wascombative, he was argumentative.
He certainly didn't act like it.
I've stopped people that werefearful of law enforcement and
(09:34):
they don't act that way andnormally you can immediately
tell and you can try to put themat ease.
And they're certainly trying tobe compliant.
They're nervous.
I get that.
That's not how he was acting.
This whole thing is absolutenonsense.
Now people say, well, theofficer shouldn't have been
verbally abusive.
I agree with you and I wouldask you Where's Hill's
(09:58):
responsibility in that?
Because the officers mirroredhis verbal behavior.
That was clear.
I'm not saying the officerswere right when it comes to the
verbal behavior, but hey, listen, these things occur.
We can deal with these things.
This is a training issue.
It's emotional intelligence,it's dealing with stress.
We understand that.
But some of that comes from justthe sheer weirdness of this.
(10:22):
Stop.
I can guarantee you thoseofficers had never dealt with
that before.
We've dealt with a lot ofthings in law enforcement, but
that was so out of the ordinaryand Hill has to take
responsibility for that.
And it's just odd to me that hesomehow wants these officers
fired because he doesn't likehow he was treated.
(10:42):
Well, there was a way he couldhave been treated very
professionally, but he didn'treally give him that opportunity
and the whole thing, the wholething is just silly to me.
Nobody's saying that.
Everybody is running to theircomputer screens and talking
about how the officers is theofficers that I had one guy say
(11:05):
well, do you know that theofficer was suspended six times
in the last 10 years?
What does that have to do withthis?
Stop?
That's a whole nother thing totalk about.
Granted, what does that have todo with this?
Stop?
Do you actually believe that ifan officer would have walked up
there that hadn't beensuspended, he would have acted
differently?
He had no idea who the officerwas right?
(11:25):
So we need to just be honestabout this and this is why law
enforcement is going down thispath.
Miami pd, do you do?
Your future recruits arewatching this, they're seeing
this and your silence tells themall they need to know.
Now am I saying that you comeout and you glorify these
(11:47):
officers?
No, but you had every power toget this accurate narrative out
there and you failed.
You had body cameras of whathappened Before that game was
over.
That night.
You should have come out withthat body camera footage and
explained to the public why theofficers had to act in the way
they did.
I'm not making excuses, foronce they got him handcuffed and
(12:11):
they were jawing back and forthwith him.
They were obviously visiblyupset.
This is what happens sometimesin human performance.
Right, that's not the indicatorof an officer's career or
someone's moral values.
These things tend to happensometimes.
We should train on that, weshould talk about that, we
should be better at that.
But being like Chick-fil-A onlygoes so far.
It just does Okay.
(12:33):
And if you're human, youunderstand.
How do you completely discounthow Tyreek Hill acts, with no
stress other than being stopped?
By the way, what did he thinkwas going to happen?
Going 120 miles an hour?
Should he not have expected tobe stopped by law enforcement?
This is nothing more than aspoiled brat acting out.
(12:54):
But most of the talk I've seenhas been putting it on law
enforcement.
Are you not tired of being beatup like this for these silly
things?
I know I am.
I'm tired of leaders justletting us get beat up.
Why am I the one talking aboutit?
I say this constantly.
Why am I the one trying todefend the Miami Police
Department?
It is just absolutelyridiculous.
(13:18):
We should be past this.
We certainly should be pastthis.
Now I know some people willlisten to this and go oh, Yates
is an apologist for all lawenforcement, or Yates is an
apologist.
No, I just told you there was acertain point in that stop I
don't agree with, and that's theverbal altercation the officer
(13:39):
started having back with him.
Let knuckleheads act like that.
We don't act like that.
No, I'm not a completeapologist.
But if you want me to believethat it was normal for someone
to disobey 10 commands, I evenhad somebody say well, they
should have asked differently.
Okay, what do you suggest?
Do you think if you'd havewalked up there like a
(14:00):
Chick-fil-A my pleasure 10 times, he would have changed his mind
?
Are you kidding me?
They started off acting thatway.
If you watch the video and getthe emotion out of your head,
they started off very polite hey, roll your window down.
He escalated the situation.
Well, they should havedeescalated out here.
Yeah, but it takes two todeescalate.
(14:21):
How are you going tode-escalate this guy?
He never followed commands Ever.
If you watch the video, play byplay.
He never followed commands andI counted them.
There were 10 different commandsto do what they wanted and I
would subject to you that if, atany time, he would have
complied, we wouldn't be talkingabout it.
(14:41):
If, at command eight, he wouldhave rolled his window down and
done what they said we wouldn'tbe talking about?
Then I hear this Well, hedoesn't have to comply.
Then you don't know the law,because as soon as he refused to
roll his window down, that'scalled obstruction and that's a
misdemeanor charge.
When you're reckless driving,that's a misdemeanor charge.
So no, he had to comply.
There's no getting out of thatone.
Okay, he's either going tocomply or they're going to make
(15:04):
him comply.
And when I looked at what I saw, they made him comply.
Okay, people just don't likewhat they saw.
Well, you could not like whatyou saw.
But how is that the fault ofthe officers?
When that was escalated byTyree Hill?
Now, I don't even know thisTyreek Hill.
Apparently he's a pretty goodplayer, but he's a kid and he's
a dumb kid at that and he's gotprobably a little bit of I'm
(15:26):
better than you attitude thatcame.
That was very clear.
Listen, I I'm not.
That's just the way it issometimes.
But you cannot any person,whether you're Tyreek Hill or
anybody you cannot act that wayand expect anything short of
what happened.
You just can't.
They gave him seven or eightcommands to roll the window down
he refused.
They gave him two or eightcommands to roll the window down
he refused.
(15:46):
They gave him two or threecommands to get out of the car
before, finally, somebody saidwe're getting him out of the car
Because they were tired ofwaiting around.
Because you know what happensif you never get that compliance
.
By the way, do you think theywould have ever gotten a
citation signed?
He was never rolling the windowdown and we can all Monday
morning quarterback this downand we can all monday morning
quarterback this and we know allthis information now.
(16:07):
But if you take a look at thatvideo based on what they know, I
don't know how you come to theconclusion that these officers
need to be fired.
Are you joking?
Are you kidding me?
The?
The truth is, if this wasn'tTyreek Hill, none of that would
be happening, because mostnormal citizens understand you
(16:30):
can't act that way.
Okay, he wasn't beaten, hewasn't bruised.
He had some ugly things said tohim after he berated the
officers.
I don't agree with that.
But does that occur sometimes?
Let's's be honest, it does,because you're dealing with
human beings out there underhigh-stress situations that
don't even understand why thishad to happen.
(16:51):
I can guarantee you the lastthing the officers wanted that
day was that altercation.
But it was Tyreek Hill thatcaused the altercation and I
don't understand how people aremissing that.
It's easy to just blame the cops, right, miami?
Miami Dolphins, you embarrassedyourself with that letter you
wrote.
You absolutely embarrassedyourself.
I mean, I don't even.
(17:14):
I don't even understand yourmentality and, by the way, part
of me respects what miami did.
I'm not going to read theletter, but they basically threw
the officer into the bus anddefended tyreek hill, or what
you saw on that video, which isinsane.
But part of me respects themfor defending their player.
What if law enforcement did that?
Not just defend people todefend them, but defend them
(17:35):
when they need to be defended.
What if law enforcement leadershad the same energy to defend
their employees as an NFL teamdoes?
Wouldn't that be something?
Wouldn't that be something?
If you know, a couple hoursafter this incident, when they
hit Twitter, the Miami PoliceDepartment put this video out
and explained to the publicstep-by-step what happened and
why the officers acted the waythey did.
(17:56):
Because I know, and they knowthis those officers were trained
to do that very thing.
Show me something they weren't.
Show me a training class whereyou aren't.
Show me something they weren't.
Show me a training class whereyou aren't.
Show me.
The Miami Police Department,like every other police
department, is trained thatnoncompliance, repeated
noncompliance, increases thedanger of all involved, and they
(18:16):
need to get compliance asquickly as possible.
And they asked 10 times nocompliance.
They then finally did the onething to make everybody safe,
which is to get handcuffs on himand then figure out what's
going on.
They did that very thing.
So I want to see if Miami PoliceDepartment wants to continue to
be outraged by what theirofficer did.
Show me the training class thatsays something.
(18:38):
Otherwise, good luck with that,because you're not going to
show me a training classcommissioned by any
accreditation agency that sayswe should just stand up there
like Chick-fil-A for 15 minutesand be nice to people when
they're defying commands.
You're not going to find that,and so I just think that we got
to be honest about this.
We just do.
Hey, the ship sailed on thisone.
(19:00):
The story that everyone's goingto know is Tyreek Hill's story
or ESPN's story.
The story I just told no one'sgoing to know is Tyreek Hill's
story or ESPN's story, the storyI just told?
No one's going to know, and Iwant to be very clear, because
the media is corrupt and themedia loves to twist everything
up.
So let me be very clear.
The initial actions by theofficer were in line with law
(19:21):
enforcement training across thiscountry, point blank.
If you want to argue with me,bring the training to me.
I do not agree with the verbalonslaught the officers had, but
I would also submit to youthat's probably a very natural
reaction if we let emotion getto us, Tyreek Hill, let emotion
get to him, we let emotion getto us, and we shouldn't do that.
We can be better than that andwe need to be better than that.
(19:43):
But stop with all the rhetoricyou're saying on this.
Okay, just stop.
And, by the way, it doesn't doany favors for the motoring
public, because kids arewatching this and what do they
think?
Well, I can just do the samething.
No, that puts you in more dangerbecause officers don't know a
(20:06):
lot of information.
There's limited information onthese traffic stops.
You don't need to do that.
If you want to argue, you wantto complain?
There are processes set up todo that.
It's called internal affairs,it's called the courts, it's
called you can get an attorneyand sue.
You can do a bunch of things toargue what you don't think is
(20:27):
right, but that that is not thetime.
That's what most grown adultsbelieve.
That's what mature adultsbelieve, that these kids are
looking to Tyreek Hill andthat's the behavior they're
seeing and he ought to be veryclear about that because we do
not want people to emulate that.
From the officer standpoint andthe citizen standpoint,
(20:50):
compliance matters.
I know that's that's sort of adirty word, but compliance does
matter.
Tyreek Hill would never actthat way around his coaches.
He knows how to act aroundauthority.
So why did this happen?
You ask him, because it wascompletely out of bounds,
completely out of line and weneed to learn from it.
(21:11):
But I'm afraid no one's goingto learn from it because
everyone's taking one side andthere's a balance here, right,
like the balance I just gave you.
The officers acted accordinglyto a certain point.
If I was reviewing videofootage of one of my officers
and I watched them, let somebodybe noncompliant for 10 times
(21:33):
and just sat there and didnothing, I would be pretty upset
.
I would be pretty upset becauseyou've got to take action at
some point.
You have an arrestable offense,they're noncompliant, you're
going to get them in handcuffs.
They don't want to submit tohandcuffs and you get them in
handcuffs.
It's just that simple and youcan not like that.
All you want Well, you've beenasleep for the last 50 years.
This is law enforcement.
(21:54):
You can either comply and getarrested or they will arrest you
and they'll put handcuffs onyou.
We and me would prefer youwould just comply.
Nobody wants the alternative.
Nothing good seems to everhappen.
Hence I'm talking about this.
But we need to stop being sillyJust stop.
(22:15):
We need some honesty in theseconversations, but nobody's
willing to give it.
That's all I had today.
I think Brian Ellis did a greatjob on this article.
I'm going to link this up.
It probably gives you a moresuccinct overall view than what
I just said, and I think there'sthings for everybody to learn.
Hopefully I covered.
Link this up.
It probably gives you a moresuccinct overall view than what
I just said, and I think there'sthings for everybody to learn.
(22:36):
Hopefully I covered that TyreekHill needs to learn.
From a law enforcementstandpoint, we should learn, and
from an organizationalstandpoint, we should learn.
There's ways to handle this.
If you're not sure of this,reach out to me, because you
should be gaming this before ithappens.
Like as soon as I saw this ontwitter you know an hour so
after it happened I immediatelysaid let's wait for the body
camera footage.
It should be out in a couplehours because if I was the miami
police department, I would havecollated that body camera
(22:57):
footage.
I would put it out whether theofficer was right, whether the
officer was wrong.
Let's be transparent, put itout.
They didn't do that for a longtime and they still, to my
knowledge, have never commentedon that.
Which wrong.
You don't just put out a bodycamera footage and let everybody
make up their own mind.
You've got to give them somedirection, because I don't
expect the general public tounderstand police tactics.
(23:17):
I don't expect any of that.
I don't expect them tounderstand how dangerous it is
for somebody to act the wayTyreek Hill acted and why
officers need to get that personin custody as quickly as
possible.
So that needs to be someexplaining to people.
But it didn't happen.
So pretty silly.
But I can guarantee you anybodyin law enforcement listening to
(23:38):
this.
Let me just leave you with thisone.
I bet you've never dealt withthat, or if you did, you did
exactly what you saw.
You extracted him from the carand got handcuffs on him because
you don't know what's going on.
You got to figure it out, so itwas such an odd.
The fact that no one's talkingabout that is just strange to me
.
That would never cross my mindfrom a motoring citizen to do
(24:01):
that.
That just seems so insane.
So a lot to think about.
A lot to talk about.
Thanks for listening.
Just remember lead on.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Thank you for listening to Courageous
Leadership with Travis Yates.
We invite you to join othercourageous leaders at www.
travisyates.
org.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.