Beyoncé’s halftime performance at the Super Bowl seems to have upset police organizations across the country.
According to TMZ, the New York Police Department is demanding an apology for Beyonce’s Super Bowl performance of Formation, which included dancers dressed like the Black Panthers and messages about police violence. TMZ reports sources within the NYPD consider the performance to be an attack against the police.
But the NYPD is not the only police organization mad at Beyoncé. Tennessee sheriff Robert Arnold recently blamed Beyoncé’s video for attacks against police and a drive-by shooting attack on his home.
“With everything that’s happened since the Super Bowl, with law enforcement as a whole, I think we’ve lost five to seven officers, five deputy sheriffs since the Super Bowl, that’s what I’m thinking. You have Beyoncé’s video and that’s kind of bled over into other things about law enforcement,” he said in a press conference.
However, The New York Daily News questioned Arnold’s credibility. He is currently facing an FBI investigation for his involvement in a company that sells e-cigarettes to inmates. He has also been hit with a $20 million lawsuit from the family of an inmate who suffered permanent brain damage from a jailhouse beating.
The New York Daily News also said five police officers have been killed since Beyoncé’s halftime show, but none of those deaths could be linked to her performance.
Miami police also weighed in on Beyoncé’s halftime performance. According to The Miami New Times, Fraternal Order of Police President Javier Ortiz has called for Miami police officers to boycott working Beyoncé concerts.
The New Times said no police officers have signed up to work security at Beyoncé’s Tampa show. But the Tampa Police Department said it will still have to provide security for the event. The New Times also pointed out that Ortiz has a controversial past. He called Tarik Aziz (he meant Tamir Rice) a “thug,” has published the addresses of citizens who filed complaints against police, and suggested that an assistant police chief who didn’t do the pledge of allegiance was probably a Muslim.
Not all Miami cops support the proposed boycott. Ella Moore, president of the Miami Community Police Benevolent Association, an organization representing Black officers, slammed Ortiz’s comments in a letter. She said Ortiz has a history of making insulting comments.
“All of these things, and others not mentioned here, have common denominators in that they involve African-Americans that he portrays in a negative light with thinly veiled racist overtones, and they all had the potential to draw the news media to Mr. Ortiz and away from his failure as a leader and as an example of a model public servant,” Moore said.
It’s a little disconcerting that police across the country seem to be threatened by a song that actually asks them to “stop killing us.” Police officers have a dangerous job and do face threats of violence, but those don’t come from Beyoncé.
Police organizations should be wary of going up against the power of the Beyhive, Beyonce’s army of fans. An anti-Beyonce demonstration in New York, organized by a mysterious group called Friends of the Blues, turned out to be a dismal failure. The demonstration attracted more pro-Beyonce supporters than anti-Beyonce protesters, according to The Atlanta Blackstar.
