Craig Miller retired as a deputy chief in Dallas and oversaw traffic enforcement for Reunion Arena, American Airlines Center and championship games for 18 years.
DALLAS, Texas — After officials in Louisville released new security and dashcam footage of golfing megastar Scottie Scheffler’s arrest last Friday before his second round of the PGA Championship, a retired Dallas police chief who oversaw sports traffic enforcement for almost 20 years reacted by saying the officer who arrested Scheffler overreacted to a point where ‘he couldn’t turn back.’
“I feel like Scottie was just following the directions from the PGA and the club. The police officer in this incident appears to have overreacted. Once that happened, he couldn’t turn back,” Craig Miller, a former Deputy Chief of the Dallas Police Department with 30-plus years of experience, said.
During that time, Miller oversaw traffic enforcement for Reunion Arena and the American Airlines Center in Dallas. Officers are routinely outside the AAC, waving through players from the Dallas Mavs and the Stars into the parking spaces beneath the building.
Miller also oversaw traffic enforcement for the NBA Finals, Stanley Cup Finals and numerous football championship games, including the Super Bowl.
“I don’t, in my mind, see this as an aggressive act by Scottie. He’s trying to get into a place where he was instructed to go. The whole reason the police were there (aside from an accident) was because of the players and the security. One of the things you have to do is take care of the players,” Miller added.
The video has garnered one-sided reactions online. It doesn’t fully support or show Detective Bryan Gillis’ scathing written account of his interaction with Scheffler that led to the Dallas golfer’s arrest, which included felony assault, reckless driving, and other charges.
Simultaneously, Gillis has received ‘corrective action’ for not having his body-worn camera on during the incident, violating department policy.
Pole camera video from across the street shows Scheffler’s PGA-branded vehicle moving past shuttles that obstruct most of the view on the ground. An officer wearing a yellow vest can be seen chasing after the car, waving his arms to get the driver’s attention.
There doesn’t appear to be an officer being “dragged to the ground,” as mentioned in Scheffler’s arrest citation, which said Gillis’ $80 uniform pants were “damaged beyond repair.”
The officer appears to talk to Scheffler for a few seconds when more officers begin walking toward the vehicle. Within a minute, Scheffler is out of the car and handcuffed.
Dashcam video from an LMPD cruiser shows Scheffler being escorted by two other officers to another cruiser off-screen at about 6:03 a.m.
Scheffler has denied any wrongdoing, calling the incident a misunderstanding. Officers were investigating a fatal traffic accident in front of the Valhalla Golf Club, yet players were allowed to make their way inside to prepare for the second round of the PGA Championship.
It’s a hot mess of a case that Miller said he would have prevented from getting to this point if he were in charge of things that Friday morning.
So, how would he have handled it?
“If I felt like his actions were inappropriate, I would have had the car pull over and spoken with him to explain that there’s a situation going on,” Miller said. “De-escalation is key. But a picture is worth a thousand words here. To immediately take someone from a car and place them in handcuffs? There wasn’t any reason for him to take that action.”
Scheffler is expected to plead not guilty in early June as the county continues to pursue the case.