Is this the most equipment and manpower a law enforcement agency has ever devoted to a meme?
What you’re witnessing is the Bloomington, Minnesota police department performing the “Running Man Challenge,” (a viral dance created by a couple high school kids and made popular by college athletes as explained by Ellen DeGeneres for you olds.) In other words it’s a Thing On The Internet that People Are Doing and hashtagging a la Harlem Shake and Ice Bucket and goodness we have a lot of time on our hands, don’t we?
At first I was wondering why a mid-sized Minnesota town’s peacekeepers had the impressive array of equipment on display here and then realized Bloomington is home to the of Mall Of America. Got to be ready for all-out-war every Friday after Thanksgiving, I guess.
We’ve seen cops make gag videos to prove they have a sense of humor before but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one with this level of performance art and production value.
I bet they were just stoked to fire up those colorful smoke bombs.
For those concerned about how your tax dollars are utilized, we reached out to Bloomington PD to ask how much time and money they actually did spend making this. Their reply:
“In response to your question concerning the time and cost of the video, the producer/photographer is one of our own officers. All of those scenes were done using on-duty officers and nothing in the video was purchased. Some of those scenes were shot on breaks or over the lunch hour. We encourage our officers to participate in various community engagement events throughout the year and consider this exactly that. I appreciate you sharing our video and hope yourself and those that view it will come away seeing police in a different light and who knows, maybe even consider it as a career choice.”
I assume the donuts were eaten after the dancing went down.