Miami is the first stop on Beyoncé’s Formation world tour, but it looks like it will also be the site of new organized efforts against her Super Bowl performance. Javier Ortiz, Miami Fraternal Order of Police president, says he is planning the show’s “anti-police message,” reported the Miami New Times.
A similar protest in New York earlier this week drew remarkably few protesters — take it from someone who stood in the rain listening to one of three present anti-Beyoncé protesters blame precipitation and the time of day for keeping the rest of the group away from the action. The Beyoncé supporters, however, were out in force.
In a statement via the Miami New Times, Ortiz listed his reasons for holding the boycott:
The Miami Fraternal Order of Police has voted to have all law enforcement officers boycott Beyoncé’s concert which is being held at the Miami Marlins Stadium on Wednesday, April 26, 2016. The fact that Beyoncé used this year’s Super Bowl to divide Americans by promoting the Black Panthers and her anti-police message shows how she does not support law enforcement.
I was one of the tens of thousands of law enforcement officers that didn’t watch the Super Bowl halftime show out of respect for our profession. On another day while flipping through the television channels, I did mistakenly watch her “Formation” video that shows scenes of a young black boy dancing in front of police in riot gear, who signal their surrender by putting their hands up, referencing the “Hands up, don’t shoot” anthem of the Black Lives Matter movement inspired by the 2014 death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. I challenge Beyoncé to review the eighty-six page report written by the United States Department of Justice on the death investigation of Michael Brown. As quoted by a witness that was interviewed by investigators, Witness 108 refused to provide additional details to either county or federal authorities, citing community sentiment to support a “hands up” surrender narrative as his reason to remain silent. He explained that he would rather go to jail than testify before the county grand jury. As detailed throughout the USDOJ report, those hands up, don’t shoot accounts are inaccurate because they are inconsistent with the physical and forensic evidence. Countless others contradicted or recanted their accounts of what transpired. Hands up, don’t shoot was built on a lie.
While Beyoncé physically saluted the 50th anniversary of the Black Panthers movement at the Super
Bowl, I salute NYPD Officer Richard Rainey, who succumbed to his injuries on February 16, 2016 from being shot by two Black Panthers who he had pulled over in a traffic stop. I also salute the dozens of law enforcement officers that have been assassinated by members of the Black Panthers.We ask all law enforcement labor organizations to join our boycott across the country and to boycott all of her concerts.
Only time will tell if this will be another no-show on the part of the anti-Beyoncé crowd. Looks like the Beygency might open a branch in Miami.
