Dolphins QB became ‘emotional’ while watching body-cam video of Tyreek Hill being detained by police
By Kevin Dotson, CNN
(CNN) — Tua Tagovailoa wasn’t at the scene when his teammate Tyreek Hill was handcuffed and thrown to the ground by Miami-Dade police before the Dolphins’ game on Sunday.
But on Tuesday, the Miami quarterback admitted he became “emotional” when watching the released body-camera footage of the incident.
“Seeing it the first time, it was a little emotional for me, hearing Tyreek’s voice in the footage,” Tagovailoa said.
“A lot of the instances that I see are of people that I don’t know and it’s happening to those people, so for it to have happened to somebody that I knew, and then hearing Tyreek’s voice throughout that – and we talked about it, it was a little emotional.”
Tagovailoa added, “I would say just watching the film, in my opinion, I think it could have been deescalated another way. I don’t think it was done the right way.”
Tagovailoa said Hill has had discussions with some of his Dolphins teammates about taking action to spark change in their community in the coming days and weeks.
“Tyreek has gathered a group of us together to do something, to help change some things,” the quarterback shared.
“He’s come up with a couple ideas and we’ve gathered to talk about what we wanted to do. Obviously, we’re going to worry about this week, but next week we’ll get back together and we’ll talk about how we can do something to change what is going on.”
A reporter noted Hill appeared on CNN Monday night to discuss what happened Sunday and asked the QB if all of it was a distraction two days before a Thursday night game versus the Buffalo Bills.
The fifth-year player out of Alabama said that issues like these are bigger than football.
“This isn’t just something that Tyreek had gone through, this is something that people in general go through,” Tagovailoa said.
“That’s a life thing. Football – we’re blessed to do this. We’re blessed to be able to play this sport. We’re blessed to make all this money to do what we love and it’s for fun, but that’s real life. No games in that.”
Even 48 hours after Miami’s thrilling comeback win against Jacksonville, Tagovailoa was still in awe of his star wide receiver’s performance, which included a key 80-yard touchdown catch – all coming mere hours after the dramatic altercation with police.
“Fifteen to 20 minutes before he came to the stadium, he just had gone through all of that,” Tagovailoa marveled.
“And mentally, physically what that does to you, he didn’t blink. He came to the stadium and got everybody turnt, and you guys see what he did. He did what he did, and that’s just Tyreek.”
The-CNN-Wire
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