With Super Bowl halftime singer Beyonce’s performance of her new hit “Formation” still fresh in their mind, some of the nation’s top cops are accusing the star and the NFL of whipping up an anti-police movement that could end with deadly results.
“This needs to go away, this is propaganda, and it’s going to cost people’s lives,” said Laramie County, Wyo., Sheriff Danny Glick, president of the National Sheriffs Association.
Scene from the Beyonce video that has angered police.
“An action like this raises them up as a target again,” he said of the NFL and Beyonce for her new song that’s been adopted by some in the Black Lives Matter movement and which features graffiti reading “stop shooting us” on the Formation video.
Glick and other officials with the association, in a briefing with reporters, were asked if tensions have lessened since the riots in Ferguson, Mo.
Their comments came half a day before Wednesday’s slaying of two Harford, Md., sheriff deputies. The local sheriff said he believed they were targeted.
David J. Mahoney, the sheriff of Dane County in Madison, Wis., bluntly said, “No, no. All you had to do was watch the NFL game and watch that the NFL allows the victimization and attempts to criminalize the profession of law enforcement of dedicated men and women who’ve answered a call to serve.”
He added, “Do I see it getting better? No, no. Not when you can watch 1 billion individuals watching the Super Bowl and watch the half time entertainment demonze a quality, valued, necessary profession.”
Mahoney, a 37-year law enforcement veteran, offered proof. He said somebody has put up pictures of officers at county bus stops that tell riders “to target them, to be wary of being stopped.”
Oakland County, Michigan Sheriff Michael Bouchard said that the White House shares in the blame for the anti-cop sentiment in some communities.
“What is everybody else’s responsibility?” when it comes to reacting to police, he said. “This administration has done nothing to say, ‘What’s your duty as a citizen when the officer says stop.'”
The national demonizing of police, said Glick, is hurting recruitment and retention in departments across the nation.
“Law enforcement agencies can’t get people hired any more,” said Glick, who quizzed department heads around the country during visits.
“And almost to a person they say, ‘Would you want to get into this profession today with every time you do something, somebody is standing there with a video camera taping you and then showing portions of it?”
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
