Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates
Courageous Leadership with Dr. Travis Yates Podcast examines what it means to be a Courageous Police Leader. Join us weekly as the concepts of Courageous Leadership are detailed along with interviews with influencers that are committed to leading with courage. You can find out more about Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates at: www.TravisYates.org
Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates
The Tyreek Hill Incident
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.
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Welcome to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates, where leaders find the insights, advice and encouragement they need to lead courageously.
Travis Yates:Welcome back to the show. I'm so honored that you were spending a few minutes with us here today and I didn't want to keep talking about issues like this, but it just simply keeps happening. I frankly don't understand what's going on with law enforcement leadership. Sometimes you see these incidents across the country where there just isn't a question about how we should act and we just keep doing the same thing over and over again. Yes, I'm here today to talk about the Tyreek Hill incident, the NFL player for the Miami Dolphins that was stopped on a traffic stop. Most of you have seen the video. I want to recommend an article that I authored along with Brian Ellis over at thebraveryblueprintcom. Hit that website. You'll see the article at the top. I'll put a link in the show notes. I want to cover a few items, a few extra items that we didn't cover in the top. I'll put a link in the show notes. I wanted to cover a few items, a few extra items that we didn't cover in the article, of course.
Travis Yates:To bring you up to speed, Tyreek Hill was stopped for speeding before Sunday's NFL football game. 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 an absolute child, is calling for the officer's termination. As the week has gone on, he is sort of at the same time he's doubling down calling for the officer's termination. He's also saying that he made some mistakes and he could do things better. But I want the officer fired. Pretty unique, because if Tyreek Hill used that standard on himself, he would have been fired from the NFL long ago from his alleged violent crimes in his past. But let me just tell you how simple this could have been from a leadership standpoint to address and how I still haven't heard anything from the Miami Police Department other than they've suspended the officer, which is kind of insane. Let's just break this down and we'll talk about it. So here's what we know and keep in mind. We know a lot more today than the officers knew on that day.
Travis Yates:Officers around this country are charged with making split-second decisions based on limited information. But here's the information they had at the time. They allegedly clocked and I say allegedly because there's sort of different stories out there, but I've got a pretty good source that tells me this but I'm going to say allegedly he was going 120 miles an hour in a 40-mile-an-hour zone and then, allegedly, he was also going 60 miles an hour in a construction zone. So it was a reckless driving stop. And, by the way, most jurisdictions on reckless driving you have a choice between a citation or an arrest. That's how serious that charge is.
Travis Yates:The officers walk up to the car, stop nothing out of the ordinary. I mean, it was a Lamborghini, but they're in Miami. I'm certain they run across those cars all the time. The officer walks up and the windows rolled up. Now listen, this is the first indicator that something's weird. Okay, let's just be honest here.
Travis Yates:Tyreek Hill is an adult. He knows exactly how to act when 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 various websites out there, from the ACLU to every lawyer, and they will give you instructions on how to act when you're stopped by the police, and it generally says something like this roll your window down, have access to your driver's license, insurance in one place, and you know, follow what the officer says, whatever it's there's just everyone knows. Let's not act like Tyreek Hill is some mentally challenged person that just has no clue how to act. We know how you're supposed to act, but nevertheless his window is rolled up.
Travis Yates:So the officer did what any officer in America would do. I'm going to keep coming back to this because we're acting like this is some sort of outlier event. This is some sort of horrific police activity. Now at a point I'm going to change my tone, but up until now the officer did what any officer in America would do. They would knock on the window and ask for them to roll the window down. Of course Tyreek Hill rolls it down a little bit. These are tinted windows so you can't see inside. He rolls it down a little bit, barking, orders and screaming and yelling and talking about why he had to knock on his window. Yada, yada, yada. It's ridiculous, right. What's the officer supposed to do? Stand there while his window's rolled up? Of course he's going to knock on the window and if you watch the video, the officer was very professional, trying to get the information. Of course Hill was barking the entire time. He finally gets his driver's license and as soon as he gets it he'll roll the window back up. The officer then says, knocks on the window and tells him to roll the window down.
Travis Yates:And here's where it gets crazy, and everybody seems to be ignoring this part. 10 different commands were given to Tyreek Hill in combination of roll your window down about seven times and then it turned to get out of the car. He never complied. He never complied and everybody that's out there. I've seen all these crazy articles you know talking about. We should do this differently. Well, I would ask, how would you do it? Show me a training class in American law enforcement today that says you want some of the windows, keep the window rolled down during a during a traffic stop. Show me that class. And then, when you show me that class, tell me what that class tells people to do. When that happens, just stand there, just say, well, I guess I don't need him to roll his window down. I'll transpose this ticket through the glass to him, I'll communicate through telepathic, whatever.
Travis Yates:It's all so ridiculous and I just love it how so-called leadership gurus out there are out there saying this crazy stuff. I even heard this one. Well, if he wasn't Tyreek Hill, who knows what would have happened? Let me tell you what would have happened if it wasn't Tyreek Hill. The same exact thing would have happened, he would have gone to jail. That's what would have happened. From what I I understand, he didn't go to jail. Probably their intent was to go to jail and they probably ended up writing him a ticket and he went on to the game and scored touchdowns right and mocked the officers after his touchdown.
Travis Yates:It's so ridiculous to to act like this has something to do with race or something to do with you know, bad cops. How do the officers even know what race he is? Are you blind and you don't see that these windows are completely tinted? And how do you discount 10 commands to follow orders and he defies them? So my question is to all of these people out there with their Monday morning quarterback how many commands do you give? 10, 20, 30? How many times do you ask him to roll the window down and he doesn't do it? How many times you ask him get out of the car and he doesn't do it? Tell me a number. Tell me a number that would satisfy you, because I'll tell you right where I work. We don't ask 10 times, we ask a few times, and that exact same thing would have happened. I've lost a good friend at a car stop like this, because we were up at the car for 10 or 15 minutes trying to get compliance and everybody listening to this in law enforcement. If you've been in law enforcement for a number of years, you know of people that have lost their lives due to this.
Travis Yates:Now I know what all the media says. They're going to say oh, travis is out here saying everybody's trying to kill him. No, I'm not saying that. But I'm saying if you want to badmouth the officers, give me the solution. Tell me what you would have done. Would you have sat there and just asked nicely, 25 times? So they asked him 10 times. Finally, when they asked him to get out of the car and he refuses again they extract him from the car. Now I want to know one training class that says not to do it that way. Tell me a training class that when somebody defies 10 commands inside a vehicle, that you're that continues to defy. By the way, he never complied, even when they pulled him out of the car. They had to forcefully pull him out of the car and he had to. He didn't even comply, giving his hands behind his back. So he never actually complied in his traffic stop, except for initially when he rode the window down a little bit, which isn't full compliance. So I want to know the one training class you're going to hang your hat on that says we should have done something different, because what I saw was very standard behavior for somebody that acts that way.
Travis Yates:Let me tell you how unordinary and uncommon this stop was. In 30 years of law enforcement, I have never had anybody act like that. I've had people have their windows rolled up, I would ask, and they roll the windows down. I have never had anybody do that, and most of you in law enforcement haven't either. That's how odd this was. In fact, you even see the officer when he knocked on the window and he doesn't roll down. He kind of looks back at the other officers like what's going on here? That's how odd it is. In fact, that's the image we have on the article at the bravery blueprint, because you can tell he locks up. He just looks back at the officers like what in the world is going on? Because that is not how people act.
Travis Yates:There's been a lot said about oh well, Tyreek Hill was scared because he was a black man being stopped by the law enforcement. Well, if he was scared, he certainly didn't act like it. He was defiant, he was combative, he was argumentative. He certainly didn't act like it. I've stopped people that were fearful of law enforcement and they don't act that way and normally you can immediately tell and you can try to put them at ease. And they're certainly trying to be compliant. They're nervous. I get that. That's not how he was acting. This whole thing is absolute nonsense.
Travis Yates:Now people say, well, the officer shouldn't have been verbally abusive. I agree with you and I would ask you Where's Hill's responsibility in that? Because the officers mirrored his verbal behavior. That was clear. I'm not saying the officers were 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.
Travis Yates:But some of that comes from just the sheer weirdness of this. Stop. I can guarantee you those officers had never dealt with that before. We've dealt with a lot of things in law enforcement, but that was so out of the ordinary and Hill has to take responsibility for that. And it's just odd to me that he somehow wants these officers fired because he doesn't like how he was treated. Well, there was a way he could have been treated very professionally, but he didn't really give him that opportunity and the whole thing, the whole thing is just silly to me. Nobody's saying that.
Travis Yates:Everybody is running to their computer screens and talking about how the officers is the officers that I had one guy say well, do you know that the officer was suspended six times in the last 10 years? What does that have to do with this? Stop? That's a whole nother thing to talk about. Granted, what does that have to do with this? Stop? Do you actually believe that if an officer would have walked up there that hadn't been suspended, he would have acted differently? He had no idea who the officer was right? So we need to just be honest about this and this is why law enforcement is going down this path. Miami pd, do you do? Your future recruits are watching this, they're seeing this and your silence tells them all they need to know.
Travis Yates:Now am I saying that you come out and you glorify these officers? No, but you had every power to get this accurate narrative out there and you failed. You had body cameras of what happened Before that game was over. That night. You should have come out with that body camera footage and explained to the public why the officers had to act in the way they did. I'm not making excuses, for once they got him handcuffed and they were jawing back and forth with him. They were obviously visibly upset.
Travis Yates:This is what happens sometimes in human performance. Right, that's not the indicator of an officer's career or someone's moral values. These things tend to happen sometimes. We should train on that, we should talk about that, we should be better at that. But being like Chick-fil-A only goes so far. It just does Okay. And if you're human, you understand. How do you completely discount how Tyreek Hill acts, with no stress other than being stopped? By the way, what did he think was going to happen? Going 120 miles an hour? Should he not have expected to be stopped by law enforcement? This is nothing more than a spoiled brat acting out.
Travis Yates:But most of the talk I've seen has been putting it on law enforcement. Are you not tired of being beat up like this for these silly things? I know I am. I'm tired of leaders just letting us get beat up. Why am I the one talking about it? I say this constantly. Why am I the one trying to defend the Miami Police Department? It is just absolutely ridiculous. We should be past this. We certainly should be past this.
Travis Yates:Now I know some people will listen to this and go oh, Yates is an apologist for all law enforcement, or Yates is an apologist. No, I just told you there was a certain point in that stop I don't agree with, and that's the verbal altercation the officer started having back with him. Let knuckleheads act like that. We don't act like that. No, I'm not a complete apologist.
Travis Yates:But if you want me to believe that it was normal for someone to disobey 10 commands, I even had somebody say well, they should have asked differently. Okay, what do you suggest? Do you think if you'd have walked up there like a Chick-fil-A my pleasure 10 times, he would have changed his mind? Are you kidding me? They started off acting that way. If you watch the video and get the emotion out of your head, they started off very polite hey, roll your window down. He escalated the situation. Well, they should have deescalated out here. Yeah, but it takes two to deescalate. How are you going to de-escalate this guy? He never followed commands Ever. If you watch the video, play by play. He never followed commands and I counted them.
Travis Yates:There were 10 different commands to do what they wanted and I would subject to you that if, at any time, he would have complied, we wouldn't be talking about it. If, at command eight, he would have rolled his window down and done what they said we wouldn't be talking about? Then I hear this Well, he doesn't have to comply. Then you don't know the law, because as soon as he refused to roll his window down, that's called 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 that one. Okay, he's either going to comply or they're going to make him comply. And when I looked at what I saw, they made him comply.
Travis Yates:Okay, people just don't like what they saw. Well, you could not like what you saw. But how is that the fault of the officers? When that was escalated by Tyree Hill? Now, I don't even know this Tyreek Hill. Apparently he's a pretty good player, but he's a kid and he's a dumb kid at that and he's got probably a little bit of I'm better than you attitude that came. That was very clear. Listen, I I'm not. That's just the way it is sometimes. But you cannot any person, whether you're Tyreek Hill or anybody you cannot act that way and expect anything short of what happened. You just can't.
Travis Yates:They gave him seven or eight commands to roll the window down he refused. They gave him two or eight commands to roll the window down he refused. They gave him two or three commands to get out of the car before, finally, somebody said we're getting him out of the car Because they were tired of waiting around. Because you know what happens if you never get that compliance. By the way, do you think they would have ever gotten a citation signed? He was never rolling the window down and we can all Monday morning quarterback this down and we can all monday morning quarterback this and we know all this information now.
Travis Yates:But if you take a look at that video based on what they know, I don't know how you come to the conclusion that these officers need to be fired. Are you joking? Are you kidding me? The? The truth is, if this wasn't Tyreek Hill, none of that would be happening, because most normal citizens understand you can't act that way. Okay, he wasn't beaten, he wasn't bruised. He had some ugly things said to him 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 under high-stress situations that don't even understand why this had to happen. I can guarantee you the last thing the officers wanted that day was that altercation. But it was Tyreek Hill that caused the altercation and I don't understand how people are missing that.
Travis Yates:It's easy to just blame the cops, right, miami? Miami Dolphins, you embarrassed yourself with that letter you wrote. You absolutely embarrassed yourself. I mean, I don't even. I don't even understand your mentality and, by the way, part of me respects what miami did. I'm not going to read the letter, but they basically threw the officer into the bus and defended tyreek hill, or what you saw on that video, which is insane. But part of me respects them for defending their player.
Travis Yates:What if law enforcement did that? Not just defend people to defend them, but defend them when they need to be defended. What if law enforcement leaders had the same energy to defend their employees as an NFL team does? Wouldn't that be something? Wouldn't that be something? If you know, a couple hours after this incident, when they hit Twitter, the Miami Police Department put this video out and explained to the public step-by-step what happened and why the officers acted the way they did. Because I know, and they know this those officers were trained to do that very thing.
Travis Yates:Show me something they weren't. Show me a training class where you aren't. Show me something they weren't. Show me a training class where you aren't. Show me. The Miami Police Department, like every other police department, is trained that noncompliance, repeated noncompliance, increases the danger of all involved, and they need to get compliance as quickly as possible. And they asked 10 times no compliance. They then finally did the one thing to make everybody safe, which is to get handcuffs on him and then figure out what's going on. They did that very thing.
Travis Yates:So I want to see if Miami Police Department wants to continue to be outraged by what their officer did. Show me the training class that says something. Otherwise, good luck with that, because you're not going to show me a training class commissioned by any accreditation agency that says we should just stand up there like Chick-fil-A for 15 minutes and 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 this one. The story that everyone's going to know is Tyreek Hill's story or ESPN's story. The story I just told no one's going to know is Tyreek Hill's story or ESPN's story, the story I just told? No one's going to know, and I want to be very clear, because the media is corrupt and the media loves to twist everything up. So let me be very clear.
Travis Yates:The initial actions by the officer were in line with law enforcement training across this country, point blank. If you want to argue with me, bring the training to me. I do not agree with the verbal onslaught the officers had, but I would also submit to you that's probably a very natural reaction if we let emotion get to us, Tyreek Hill, let emotion get to him, we let emotion get to us, and we shouldn't do that. We can be better than that and we need to be better than that. But stop with all the rhetoric you're saying on this. Okay, just stop. And, by the way, it doesn't do any favors for the motoring public, because kids are watching this and what do they think? Well, I can just do the same thing.
Travis Yates:No, that puts you in more danger because officers don't know a lot of information. There's limited information on these traffic stops. You don't need to do that. If you want to argue, you want to complain? There are processes set up to do that. It's called internal affairs, it's called the courts, it's called you can get an attorney and sue. You can do a bunch of things to argue what you don't think is right, but that that is not the time. That's what most grown adults believe. That's what mature adults believe, that these kids are looking to Tyreek Hill and that's the behavior they're seeing and he ought to be very clear about that because we do not want people to emulate that.
Travis Yates:From the officer standpoint and the citizen standpoint, compliance matters. I know that's that's sort of a dirty word, but compliance does matter. Tyreek Hill would never act that way around his coaches. He knows how to act around authority. So why did this happen? You ask him, because it was completely out of bounds, completely out of line and we need to learn from it. But I'm afraid no one's going to learn from it because everyone's taking one side and there's a balance here, right, like the balance I just gave you.
Travis Yates:The officers acted accordingly to a certain point. If I was reviewing video footage of one of my officers and I watched them, let somebody be noncompliant for 10 times and just sat there and did nothing, I would be pretty upset. I would be pretty upset because you'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 to handcuffs and you get them in handcuffs. It's just that simple and you can not like that. All you want Well, you've been asleep for the last 50 years. This is law enforcement. You can either comply and get arrested or they will arrest you and they'll put handcuffs on you. We and me would prefer you would just comply. Nobody wants the alternative. Nothing good seems to ever happen. Hence I'm talking about this. But we need to stop being silly Just stop. We need some honesty in these conversations, but nobody's willing to give it. That's all I had today.
Travis Yates:I think Brian Ellis did a great job on this article. I'm going to link this up. It probably gives you a more succinct overall view than what I just said, and I think there's things for everybody to learn. Hopefully I covered. Link this up. It probably gives you a more succinct overall view than what I just said, and I think there's things for everybody to learn. Hopefully I covered that Tyreek Hill needs to learn. From a law enforcement standpoint, we should learn, and from an organizational standpoint, 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 it happens.
Travis Yates:Like as soon as I saw this on twitter you know an hour so after it happened I immediately said let's wait for the body camera footage. It should be out in a couple hours because if I was the miami police department, I would have collated that body camera footage. I would put it out whether the officer was right, whether the officer was wrong. Let's be transparent, put it out. They didn't do that for a long time and they still, to my knowledge, have never commented on that. Which wrong.
Travis Yates:You don't just put out a body camera footage and let everybody make up their own mind. You've got to give them some direction, because I don't expect the general public to understand police tactics. I don't expect any of that. I don't expect them to understand how dangerous it is for somebody to act the way Tyreek Hill acted and why officers need to get that person in custody as quickly as possible. So that needs to be some explaining to people.
Travis Yates:But it didn't happen. So pretty silly. But I can guarantee you anybody in law enforcement listening to this. Let me just leave you with this one. I bet you've never dealt with that, or if you did, you did exactly what you saw. You extracted him from the car and got handcuffs on him because you don't know what's going on. You got to figure it out, so it was such an odd. The fact that no one's talking about that is just strange to me. That would never cross my mind from a motoring citizen to do 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:Thank you for listening to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates. We invite you to join other courageous leaders at www. travisyates. org.
