3 February 26 - March 4, 2026 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com NEW TIMES | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NEWS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2008 miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | CONTENTS | LETTERS | RIPTIDE | METRO | NIGHT+DAY | STAGE | ART | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | ▼ MIAMI SWEET RELEASE THE EX-MIAMI COP WHO DRAGGED TYREEK HILL FROM HIS CAR CELEBRATES THAT THE DOLPHINS RECEIVER IS NO LONGER WITH THE TEAM. BY NAOMI FEINSTEIN A fter the Miami Dolphins re- leased wide receiver Tyreek Hill, the former Miami-Dade police officer who hauled Hill out of his car and handcuffed him during a traffic stop outside Hard Rock Stadium in September 2024 appeared to be thrilled to hear that the star receiver was no longer with the team. Danny Torres celebrated the 31-year-old’s release with a post on Facebook on Tuesday, writing, “Hmmm...I guess it took a bit, but Karma got you. Now that I am retired, I can tell you how I feel about you. You’re an enti- tled ASSHOLE and an embarrassment to the team and city that kissed your ass. I wish you the best and hope you are able to afford ALL that child support, especially now that you’re unemployed. But I’m sure someone will pick you up, and you will cause havoc in their team and city. Just how you did in Miami.” Torres even referenced the traffic stop: “Btw, next time, roll your F....G window down,” he added. In a text message to New Times, Torres, who retired in July, said he was “pretty much crucified for doing my job.” He added that he “100 percent” stands by his Facebook post. “I was actually nice,” he said. “He de- stroyed me and my reputation when the inci- dent happened, and I had to stay quiet because I was still employed. But I am retired, so now is my turn to say the truth.” Ahead of the Dolphins’ season opener on September 8, 2024, a group of motorcycle of- ficers from the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office (then known as the Miami-Dade Police De- partment) pulled Hill over just outside the stadium for allegedly speeding. As the nearly 30-minute traffic stop unfolded, body-cam footage captured Torres turning aggressive when Hill failed to follow a fellow officer’s demands to keep his window rolled down. Torres stepped in and hauled Hill out of his car. As Torres and another officer took Hill to the ground, Torres knelt on his back as the other officer handcuffed the star receiver. “When we tell you to do something, you do it,” Torres yelled at Hill. “You understand? Not what you want, but what we tell you. You are a little fucking confused...Stop crying.” When one of Hill’s then-teammates, Cal- ais Campbell, arrived at the scene, body-cam- era footage also captured Torres shouting at him and later placing him in handcuffs. “If you don’t leave, I am going to take you to jail,” Torres said. Following the release of the body-camera footage from the incident, Torres, then a 27- year veteran of the force, was placed on ad- ministrative leave. The Dolphins called on the police department to “take strong action against the officers who engaged in such de- spicable behavior.” “We are saddened by the overly aggressive and violent conduct directed towards Tyreek Hill, Calais Campbell, and Jonnu Smith by police officers before yesterday’s game,” the team’s statement read. “It is both maddening and heartbreaking to watch the very people we trust to protect our community use such unnecessary force and hostility towards these players, yet it is also a reminder that not every situation like this ends in peace, as we are grateful this one did.” In the aftermath of the incident, Hill ac- knowledged that he should have followed the rules and left his window down. However, he added that he does not justify the officers’ be- havior that day. “I will say I could have been better — you know, I could have let down my window — in that instant…,” he said. “But at the end of the day, you know, I’m human. I gotta follow rules. I gotta, you know, do what everyone else would do. Now, does that give them the right to literally beat the dog out of me? Abso- lutely not. But at the end of the day, I wish I could go back and, you know, do things a bit differently.” As for Torres, Hill said, “Gone, gone, gone. He gotta go, man.” A subsequent review of Torres’ social me- dia, including his personal Facebook profile, revealed that the veteran motorcycle cop was an avid DJ, biker, and member of the Florida chapter of the Gunfighters Motorcycle Club. A Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office spokesperson confirmed to New Times that Torres did, in fact, retire. [email protected] | RIPTIDE | GET MORE NEWS & COMMENTARY AT MIAMINEWTIMES.COM/NEWS Miami-Dade police officers, including Danny Torres (left), handcuffed and detained Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill outside Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens prior to the team’s regular-season opener on September 8, 2024. MDPD body-cam screenshot ▼ PALM BEACH HAUNTED MANSION UNCLE LUKE ADDRESSES RESURFACED CLAIM OF NUDE MINORS AT MAR-A-LAGO. BY B. SCOTT MCLENDON J ust before famed Miami rapper and re- cord executive Uncle Luke announced his bid for Congress earlier this month, a 2016 SiriusXM interview resurfaced where he recalled a ‘90s Mar-a-Lago party during which he saw what he described as naked underage girls. The video apparently first resurfaced on pro- gressive media outlet MeidasTouch in a Threads post, where podcaster Ben Meiselas replays the interview in which Uncle Luke describes the party to Sirius radio host Mark Thompson. Uncle Luke, real name Luther Campbell, addressed the controversy in a Facebook post on February 14, where he admits to discussing the issue with multiple outlets about a decade ago. “Let me get into this Luke going to Trump party controversy that all of a sudden hit the wire today,” Uncle Luke says. “This Uncle Luke going to Donald Trump and seeing drugs and seeing people underage and all that and every- thing. This conversation that happened in 2016 or 2017. For it to be brought up right now to make it as if I just had a current conversation with XM radio today or yesterday, and all of a sudden they’ve got some smoking gun, let me just say this first of all,” he says in the video. “I’ve had a conversation about this on numer- ous occasions. I went on Joy Reid’s show, and she asked me about the party at Donald Trump’s. I went to CNN when Miss Baldwin was on there, and they had the Republican National Convention in Coral Gables, where the University of Miami is, and they asked me about the party I went to. I had these conversations on numerous occasions. “So for these people to bring this up right now as if I had a brand new conversation with XM radio, fuck no. I ain’t just had no goddamn conversation with no XM radio.” Uncle Luke had not returned New Times’ re- quests for comment, including a phone call and multiple emails, by the time of this reporting. In the recent MediasTouch video, Meiselas says, “He talks about going to a Mar-a-Lago party. He left right away. He thought he was going to get extorted because the girls all looked underage, or a lot of them looked so young that he had to get the hell out of there.” Uncle Luke was a guest on the Make It Plain show with Rev. Mark Thompson in 2016, where he told the host about Trump inviting him to a party in the ‘90s and showing him around his Palm Beach estate. “He said, ‘Look, I got all these women. I got these women from the pageant, they’re going to be there,” Uncle Luke says in the video. “They sent some cars to pick us up, we get in the car, and we drive up there. Me, Mike, and Ed- die Murphy are all in individual cars. The car ser- vice took us up there. We got there, and he showed us around the house, told us about the mansion and the history behind it.” Uncle Luke describes a party with no music, young-looking women in various rooms at the estate, and sexual acts taking place before the host asks, “So women just naked in rooms with no music?” “Hey, people walked around,” Uncle Luke re- sponds. Later saying, “I was happy to be at the party, but at the end of the day, when I started looking at some of these girls’ faces, I was like, ‘Man, these girls don’t look like they’re old enough.’ It was like, ‘OK, I can’t be up in here.’” In the initial interview with Thompson, Uncle Luke says he never asked anyone’s age and im- mediately left the party out of fear that he might be extorted for being there. [email protected] “HE SAID, ‘LOOK, I GOT ALL THESE WOMEN. I GOT THESE WOMEN FROM THE PAGEANT, THEY’RE GOING TO BE THERE.”
