Charles Barkley rips media for playing ‘race card’ in Tyreek Hill’s detainment

'The one thing you can't do as a celebrity, you can't say, 'Do you know who I am?'

Published Sep 12, 2024  •  2 minute read

Police body camera video shows an officer dragging Miami Dolphins receiver Tyreek Hill out of his sports car by his arm and head and then forcing him face first onto the ground after Hill put up the window of his vehicle. Photo by Miami-Dade Police Department

Charles Barkley has never been one to hold back and certainly will tell it like it is.

And he was ready to point out some similarities between two star athletes that had recent run-ins with police.

The NBA hall of famer-turned-broadcaster spoke out about the recent coverage of an incident involving Dolphins star Tyreek Hill, who was detained by police on the way to the Miami stadium, with the Round Mound of Rebound slamming the media for playing the “race card” over the incident.

On his way to Hard Rock Stadium before the Dolphins’ Week 1 matchup with the Jacksonville Jaguars, Hill was pulled from his McLaren sportscar and forced onto the ground after being stopped by the cops for alleged reckless driving and speeding.

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With the story making waves over the past week, Barkley believes that it wasn’t covered correctly by the media.

“I hate that we’re gonna throw it in the media because you know the guys are gonna quickly go to race and it bothers me,” Barkley said during a radio appearance, per Awful Announcing.

“We got so many fools in the media who love to play the race card. I said, ‘Wait a minute, (police) just did the same thing to Scottie Scheffler.”

Scheffler, the No. 1 golfer in the world, was detained and arrested prior to this year’s PGA Championship as he drove into Valhalla Golf Club.

Scheffler was charged with third-degree criminal mischief, reckless driving, disregarding traffic signals from an officer directing traffic and even second-degree assault of a police officer. All charges were later dropped.

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Scottie Scheffler after he was booked by Louisville Metro Police. Photo by HANDOUT /Louisville Metro Police

Barkley said that Scheffler’s arrest is evidence that Hill was not targeted because of his race and also offered his advice about how star athletes should act when being detained.

“The one thing you can’t do as a celebrity, you can’t say, ‘Do you know who I am?’ You say, ‘Yes, sir,’ cooperate 100%,” Barkley said. “Like I said, I don’t know what happened, but when we let these fools on TV and radio start talking about it, they go straight to, ‘Was it racism?’

“I’m like, ‘wait a minute now, we don’t know that.’ I saw the police report say he was uncooperative. But the one thing I hate when we put stuff in the media and we let guys who race-bait start throwing things out there, like I said, wait a minute, the same thing just happened to Scottie Scheffler, who actually went on got booked! He went down to the big house!”

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