MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Two traffic citations issued to Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill in September were dismissed when the responding officers failed to appear at a court hearing Monday.
Hill was pulled over by Miami-Dade police officer Manuel Batista outside Hard Rock Stadium hours before the Dolphins’ regular-season opener Sept. 8 for allegedly speeding and was cited for careless driving and failure to wear a seat belt. The incident went viral when Miami-Dade police officer Danny Torres was seen dragging Hill out of his vehicle and forcibly placing him in handcuffs.
Torres’ behavior was captured on the officers’ body cameras, and he was quickly placed on administrative duties. An internal affairs investigation was launched, but no results have been released.
Attorneys Devon Jacob, Stephen Kelly, Jeffrey Neiman and Julius Collins released a statement on Hill’s behalf following the dismissal of his citations.
“As anticipated, the traffic citations against Tyreek Hill were dismissed. Police officers should not issue citations unless they are willing to testify in court, under oath, with respect to same,” they said in the statement. “Officer Torres and Batista’s absence from court today evidences their knowledge of wrongdoing. These officers should be disciplined for their failure to appear. Mr. Hill was entitled to have his day in court and the officers failed to appear.
“It is our belief that Officer Torres and Officer Batista failed to appear in court so that they could not be questioned under oath.”
Hill said in a Tuesday post on X, “Where all the internet cops now.”
The Miami-Dade Police said that the officers’ failure to appear was “an oversight” and that “the matter will be handled administratively.” Still, the department defended issuing Hill the tickets.
“A citation dismissed due to this reason does not indicate that the citation held no merit,” the agency said in a statement.
Hill previously admitted that he didn’t handle the situation as well as he could have; while he initially complied with Batista’s command to roll his window down, Hill rolled his window back up after asking Batista to issue him a ticket and move on with his day.
Hill said he harbored no ill will toward the police, but he did call for Torres’ dismissal back in September.
During the initial incident, Hill’s teammates Jonnu Smith and Calais Campbell arrived on the scene in an attempt to de-escalate the situation. Smith was ultimately cited; Campbell was briefly detained but was released without a citation.
Hill has been at the center of numerous off-field incidents since joining the Dolphins in 2022, including a physical altercation with a Haulover Marina employee in June 2023 and a lawsuit that alleges he broke a social media influencer’s leg earlier this year.
Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said Hill is “a different human being” than when they first met, and Hill, 30, said he believes he has grown over the past few years.
“This happened at the right time in my life because the way I’ve matured, the way I’ve been handling myself with my kids, stepping up as a father, just all of that, man,” Hill said in September. “The older I’ve been getting, man, the more I’ve been realizing how important it is for me to just be a pro’s pro. Obviously when you first come into the league, you just want to have fun, do whatever you want to do. But I’ve done all that. I now see how important it is to be a father, be a husband, be a son and just be that family man that my grandparents raised me to be, man.
“So that’s the maturity [McDaniel is] talking about. When my teammates see me now, I’m with my wife, I’m with my kids. I’m enjoying life, man. I’m slowing my life down. I’m not doing the crazy things that I used to do when I first came into the league. I’m handling myself with a lot of dignity now in a lot of respects.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
