A Miami police union announced Thursday that it was urging a nationwide boycott by law enforcement labor organizations of Beyoncé’s forthcoming world tour, which is slated to begin in the city April 27 at Marlins Park.
In a statement, Javier Ortiz, president of the Miami Fraternal Order of Police, accused the singer of using her recent Super Bowl performance “to divide Americans by promoting the Black Panthers and her antipolice message.”
The video for Beyoncé’s new song “Formation” includes images referencing the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and shows a young African-American boy in a hoodie dancing in front of police officers in riot gear. During her halftime set at the Super Bowl, backup dancers were dressed in outfits reminiscent of the 1960s-era Black Panthers.
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was a vocal critic, saying on Fox News the next day he found the performance “outrageous.”
On Thursday, Ortiz wrote that he “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,” but that “on another day while flipping through the television channels, I did mistakenly watch her ‘Formation’ video.'”
A representative for Beyoncé was not immediately available to comment. But a spokesman for the City of Miami Police Department told the Huffington Post that the union spoke only for itself and that “there’s no indication that anything that is said there will translate into police officers not working the job.”
The office of Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado did not respond to an email request for comment.