Miami cops vow security boycott of Beyoncé concert in April
The Fraternal Order of Police has moved on from berating filmmaker Quentin Tarantino to bashing Beyoncé, vowing to boycott working security at her concert when her Formation tour kicks off in April in Miami.
Members of the Miami chapter of the FOP, the national police union, voted to boycott Beyoncé's April 26 show at Marlins Stadium, local union president, Lt. Javier Ortiz, confirmed Thursday.
He called on all police officers everywhere to boycott all of her concerts on her forthcoming world tour.
The reason: She '"used this year's Super Bowl to divide Americans by promoting the Black Panthers and her anti-police message," Ortiz said in a letter announcing the boycott.
The FOP was one of multiple police unions and departments that called for a boycott of Oscar-winning Tarantino's latest film after he delivered inflammatory remarks at a November rally in New York against police brutality.
The Miami move comes after ex-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani went on Fox News Channel after the Super Bowl to condemn Beyoncé-and-company's half-time show — in which she and her dancer posse cavorted in black berets and bandoliers — as "outrageous" and an "attack on police officers."
Rudy Giuliani calls Beyonce's Super Bowl performance 'attack' on cops
Ortiz accused Beyoncé of using her Super Bowl show to "salute" the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Black Panthers, a black-power group widely feared by police back in the day and still loathed in 2016.
Ortiz said he and "tens of thousands" of cops didn't watch the show — apparently they knew what Beyoncé was going to do before anyone else. But he later stumbled on her Formation video, which featured a black boy dancing in front of police in riot gear, who put their hands up in surrender.
Clearly a reference to the Black Lives Matter campaign, Ortiz said, and the police-shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., last year. He challenged Beyoncé to read the Justice Department report on that shooting, saying it showed "hands up, don't shoot was built on a lie."
As per usual, Beyoncé has been silent about all this.
Beyonce announces The Formation World Tour
Ortiz did not clarify whether the call to boycott working security on the Miami concert is an order or a request, and whether it applies to all Miami cops, or just union members or all police officers in Dade County.
Nor would he say what would happen to those cops who ignore the boycott. And what about cops who want to attend the concert for their own pleasure on their own time?
But the Fox News affiliate in Tampa reported that no local cops have signed up yet to work her concert on April 29 in Tampa.
Police union threatens Tarantino with 'surprise'
So far, the FOP's campaign against Tarantino has yielded little. Prior to the opening of his The Hateful Eight on Christmas Day, Jim Pasco, the head of the national FOP, threatened a nasty "surprise" for the filmmaker in retaliation for not apologizing for his remarks at the New York rally.
But nothing happened and the film opened without incident. It's grossed about $132 million worldwide.