On Monday night, someone reportedly drove by the house of a local sheriff in Tennessee and fired at least six shots.
Rutherford County Sheriff Robert Arnold doesn't yet have an explanation for what happened. But he has a suspicion for what may have motivated the person: Beyonce.
"We all know, as soon as you put your uniform on, you're a target," Arnold said in a Tuesday morning press conference, according to The Daily News Journal. "You make people mad when you're just doing your job."
He wondered if it was part of a wave of attacks on law enforcement officials around the country and pointed to "everything that’s happened since the Super Bowl."
"You know, Beyonce's video," he clarified.
Q: Have you given any thought to ... that kind of a headline, how it looks nationally. You know we've seen a lot of instances where people in law enforcement have been specifically targeted in violence.
ARNOLD: Well that’s actually what I thought about. Once I kind of figured everything out, you know, with everything since the half[time show] at the Super Bowl and with law enforcement as a whole. I mean I think we've lost five to seven officers. Five deputy chairs since Sunday’s Super Bowl. You know that’s what I'm thinking, you know, here’s another target on law enforcement.
... Well you have Beyonce's video and how that's kind of bled over into other things it seems like about law enforcement.
Many conservatives were outraged by Beyonce and her new song "Formation." In the video, a person dances in front of police dressed in riot gear, a wall reads "Stop shooting us" and she sits on top of a sinking police car.
In her Super Bowl halftime show, where she performed the number, she paid tribute to black empowerment and referenced the Black Panthers, Malcolm X, Michael Jackson and Black Lives Matter.
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) said it was "really outrageous that she used it as a platform to attack police officers who are the people who protect her and protect us, and keep us alive."
There was supposed to be an anti-Beyonce protest outside the NFL's headquarters in New York City Tuesday morning, but pretty much no one showed up.
Arnold is married with two children. No one was injured in Monday night's shooting. There's also been no evidence linking violence toward police and Beyonce's performances.
UPDATE: Feb. 18 -- Arnold said in a radio interview Wednesday that his comments about Beyonce were taken out of context, and he never meant to blame her specifically.
"I'm not trying to offend anybody," he said. "You know, I know, you know, she didn’t cause this directly, you know, or anything like that. You know. It's just, it’s actually been kind of crazy how the media has twisted this and then turned this."
He added that the whole incident has been very hard on him and his family.
"I mean, I'm tore up from the floor up, you know, that my kids, my wife, who I adore, were subject to this terrorism of our house," Arnold said. "I mean, I don't, you call it anything other than that, somebody trying to intimidate me."
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