Police officer who arrested Tyreek Hill had ‘Bills Mafia’ LinkedIn background?

Claim:

A police officer involved in the arrest and detention of NFL player Tyreek Hill listed a background with the Buffalo Bills on his LinkedIn profile.

Judgement:

On September 8, 2024, Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill was pulled over en route to his team’s season opener against the Jacksonville Jaguars. Officers drawn Hill, one of the team’s star players, got out of his car and wrestled him to the ground, an incident that was captured on video by several fans on their way to the game.

Hill eventually became issued with a speeding ticket and scored a touchdown a few hours later. The Miami-Dade Police Department (MDPD) launched an internal investigation into the incident and Miami Dolphins management released a statement to insist the department to “take swift and forceful action against the officers who engaged in such despicable conduct.”

The next day, a alleged screenshot A LinkedIn profile reportedly belonging to the officer who pulled Hill from the car has been viewed more than 1.3 million times. That image showed a profile with a “Bills Mafia” graphic background — a reference to the Dolphins’ rival team, the Buffalo Bills.

The screenshot, however, had been doctored and was most likely a prank or deliberate disinformation. In addition to the visual evidence of editing — the white border of the profile photo was painted over by part of the background image — it also differed from what was once a real LinkedIn profile (but appears to have since been removed).

After the events of September 9 edition from bodycam footage of several officers involved in the incident, online sleuths claimed identified the agent — who matches the name Manuel Batista — on LinkedIn, based on a name tag seen in the footage. A person with that name and the above profile photo once had a LinkedIn profile with the same details seen in the viral screenshot, but it did not contain any Buffalo Bills-related imagery.

Snopes does not confirm Batista’s identification or LinkedIn profile. Rather, we note that the screenshot was edited to include a Bills Mafia logo in the background, and that the screenshot was posted after a viral post on X with an original image from that LinkedIn profile.

Because the image used as the basis for this claim was manipulated, we rated this claim as False.