Jake Owen had an eventful Cinco de Mayo, to say the least. Saturday night he tweeted a picture of himself standing in front of a Sheriff’s vehicle in handcuffs and told his fans, “I just got arrested in my own hometown.” A spokesperson from the Sheriff’s office later clarified that Jake was not arrested, but merely detained. It was clear that Jake was not taken to jail because shortly after posting the picture of himself in handcuffs he went on a Twitter rant about the incident. He explained that he was wearing an old man mask “and the sheriff decided to rip me out of Steak And Shake and embarrass me in front of my family.” Apparently there is a law in the state of Florida that was enacted in the 1950’s that prohibits the wearing of masks or hoods on public property, that was originally designed to combat the Ku Klux Klan, and their tradition of wearing white hoods. The Sheriff’s spokesperson told the Indian River Press Journal that Jake was dancing outside the window of the restaurant and “He had a mask on, some type (of mask) that looked like an older man. At the time, the deputy didn’t know what he had.” Once Jake’s family came outside and explained what was going on, Jake was released.
Immediately after the incident Jake was clearly unhappy about the situation when he tweeted, “You give a guy a gun and a badge and he thinks he’s John Wayne. Thanks Indain (sic) River County Sheriffs Office. Unreal.” He ended the night by saying, “I’m calling it a night. My mom cried. My Dad was embarrassed. I lived out another day. Happy Cinco De Mayo.”
By the next morning Jake had reevaluated the situation and regretted letting the immediacy of Twitter get the best of him. He deleted most of his tweets from the night before and proceeded to issue a heartfelt apology in a series of five tweets, which read, “Y’all I apologize. The IRC Sheriff was doing their job. I love hometown. I had too good of a time on Cinco de Mayo. I want to publicly apologize again for bringing to light a situation that I overreacted to. I embarrassed myself and my family and most importantly the great people of my hometown. The Sheriffs were doing their jobs and I made an immature decision to announce it to the world. This is me talking. Not some puppet that is reciting what he ‘should’ say. I take full responsibility. Again, what’s done is done, but I am truly sorry.”
