A 27-year veteran of the Miami-Dade Police Department has been identified as the officer placed on administrative duty in connection with the incident that saw Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill taken into custody Sunday ahead of the season opener at Hard Rock Stadium.
Danny Torres was appointed by MDPD, which said he will “remain in an administrative role.” Statement provided to CBS News Miami.
“The internal investigation is still ongoing and we will provide further information as it becomes available, pending the outcome of the investigation,” the statement read.
The officer's lawyer, who did not provide his name at the time, issued a statement on the officer's behalf Monday, calling the decision to place the officer in administrative service “premature” and calling for the officer's “immediate reinstatement.”
The officer is being defended by attorney Ignacio Alvarez of the ALGO Law Firm and attorney Israel Reyes of the Reyes Law Firm.
“We urge all parties to refrain from making public statements that misrepresent our client's actions and mislead the public about Mr. Hill's detention.” Alvarez said in a statement to ESPN..
Hill's attorney, Drew Rosenhaus, appeared on “The Dan Le Batard Show” on Tuesday and called for the officers involved in the incident to be fired.
Hill, 30, was charged with careless driving, which carries a fine of $179, and a seat belt violation, which carries a fine of $129.
Body camera footage of the incident was released Monday night and showed the chaotic scene that ensued when officers attempted to make contact with Hill after pulling him over for speeding. Hill is accused of going an estimated 60 mph in a 40 mph speed zone. According to the police report: Posted by NFL Network.
Eventually, officers ended up forcibly pulling the wide receiver from the car and wrestling him to the ground.
Former Baltimore Police Chief and Maryland State Police Officer Neil Franklin told CNN that officers escalated the situation.
“This is terrible. This is one of the big problems in policing today is that officers are not following their training,” he said in an interview. According to Newsweek:“They did not use the de-escalation techniques that they are trained in and in this particular case, as I said before, they actually made the situation worse.”
Former Boca Raton Police Chief Andrew J. Scott told Newsweek magazine that “I don't think any of the officers did anything wrong” and that the responsibility lay with Hill.
“If Mr. Hill had complied with the officers' requests initially, kept the window open and listened to what the officers had to say, he would have been on the road in less than 10 minutes, received his complaint and left. But that did not happen,” he said.
