Virginia police department's lip-sync video on their lunch break gets more than 77 million views
Two months ago, the Norfolk Police Department in Virginia joined the viral lip sync challenge between police departments across the country, and their fun one-take performance of Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk” has now garnered over 77 million of views.
The internet is still buzzing with the epic lip sync video choreographed and recorded by the Norfolk Police Department on their lunch break. Over 40 uniformed officers, support personnel and firefighters joined the fun while singing and dancing around the police station to show the citizens a different, more human side of their local officers.
The video with just six officers walking through the hallways while singing to Mark Ronson’s and Bruno Mars’ hit song, but as they keep walking around the officers, more and more officers join them, adding more fun to the shot with new moves and facial expressions.
By the end of the song, there are motorbikes with their lights on, a firetruck, and even a baby on camera, as the officers stood outside their station dancing around their vehicles and doing a choreographed dance that shows they know how to put on a show.
“YOUR WAIT IS OVER!!!!,” they captioned the video. “The Corinth Police Department, Texas challenged the Norfolk Police Department to a #lipsync battle and we gladly accepted. As you can see we all had a great time filming the video, which we have to point out was done in #onetake!”
NEWFOUND FAME
"I'm just so glad people are enjoying it,” William Pickering, a Norfolk Police Department spokesman, told the Virginian-Pilot.
"I'm at a loss for words."
Officer Christopher Tavaras, the frontman through the whole video, stole the hearts of women all over the nation, who filled the comment section of the video with praises for the “sexy officer at the front.” “I took more photos in the last three days than I had in the entire year,” he joked in an interview with NBC.
The Norfolk Police was initially challenged to do the lip sync by the Corinth Police Department in Texas, and after a week of recruiting volunteers to record the video and creating a choreography, they gave everything they had on the dance floor, or well, the police station.
“We wanted to show the community our primary objective is to protect and serve the community, but we’re not robots,” said Pickering. “We share a lot of the same interests the community has.”
A NEW COMPETITOR
The Nixa Police Department in Missouri decided to join the challenge last month, and their incredible performance of “Footloose” seems to have dethroned Norkfolk as the undisputable kings and queen of the -friendly competition.
Dancing to the iconic Kenny Loggins’s song, the officers are seen dancing and showing their best footwork in various settings and surrounded by people from the community, who were just as excited as the officers for the challenge.
“No budget, no production company (shot and edited by our Public Information Officer who studied film production), and all officers donated their time to participate,” they wrote on Facebook. “Thanks to everyone in the Nixa community who came out to dance with us! Y'all are too much fun!”