Officer's viral lip-sync video sparks pop battles among police departments
It's become sort of a thing in Texas and now across the U.S.: Police officers in cars, lip-syncing to pop songs, posting the videos to social media and issuing a challenge to the next officer.
"What you got?"
And, it all started with Alexander Mena, a deputy in the Bexar County, Texas, Sheriff's Office. His department posted a video of Mena singing "Fuiste Mala" by the Kumbia Kings on June 19. As of today, the video has 1.4 million views.
Mena, a recruiting-team deputy with Bexar County for three years, said he'd been doing lip-sync videos since he'd gotten SnapChat. One day, he sent one of the videos to his sergeant who then passed it along to the officers who handle social media for the sheriff's office.
"We wanted some positive stuff to come to the sheriff's office. With some of the things that happen in law enforcement and with the media ... we wanted something more positive and for the community and our deputies to kind of connect together. ... I did not think that it was going to blow up the way that it did," Mena said.
But when the Bexar County, Texas, Sheriff's Office boasted that Mena had "a mean lip sync not many can beat," others in law enforcement in the state and elsewhere took that as a bit of a challenge.
Enter performances from officers from San Antonio, Laredo, Austin and other cities across the country. Hashtag: LipSyncBattle.
"We wanted something more positive ... for the community and our deputies to kind of connect together."
"People get to see another side of the officers and the not-so-serious side that everybody perceives it to be when you're talking to an officer or you're communicating with one," Mena told ABC News. "It lets the younger generation know that OK, it's OK to go up to an officer and just say, 'Hi.' That way they know that we like to have a good time too."
Mena said that while he thought that other officers would participate from his county, he had no idea others from across the state and the U.S. would post their own videos.
"I am extremely glad that other officers from different agencies -- I've even seen some firemen -- get involved. I think it's great. I think it helps the morale and I think it helps with communities and law enforcement coming together," he said. "I want to challenge every other department out there throughout the country to get involved and have one of their officers lip sync and see where it goes."
