‘Police are there to uphold the law and keep people safe, not to join the festivities’: From TikTok skits to partying at Pride and busting moves at the Commonwealth Games – all the times police stopped to have a dance while on duty
Police officers faced a backlash over the weekend for joining in with a performance of the Macarena at a Pride festival, as critics accused them of not taking their job seriously enough.
Locals reacted with fury after multiple posts were made showing on-duty officers having fun on Lincolnshire Police’s social media accounts from the festival, including the video of officers dancing.
Their concerns were reinforced by Susan Hall, chair of the Police and Crime Committee at the Greater London Authority, who told MailOnline: ‘We should not have uniformed police doing the Macarena when they should be doing their jobs.’
But it was by no means the first instance of uniformed officers on duty getting involved with the festivities at major events.
In May, five officers were branded a ‘disgrace’ for performing a TikTok-style dance in a north London suburb with a high crime rate.
Footage from a ‘youth engagement’ community event in Edmonton showed the four PCs and a sergeant busting moves to Run-DMC’s 1983 hip hop song It’s Like That.
Their routine, which lasted about a minute on stage and included synchronised moves, was met with some applause – but others were less impressed.
Mick Neville, a retired senior Scotland Yard detective, told The Sun: ‘It’s a total disgrace. People don’t want to see police dancing in the street. Edmonton is a high crime area. These officers should be on patrol, not dad dancing.’
A month earlier, student officer Gorvinder Chima was filmed showing off his moves alongside the women dancers at a stall outside the stadium in Perry Barr, Birmingham.
Meanwhile in 2019, a lip-syncing policeman, wearing rainbow epaulettes and a Hawaiian garland of flowers, performed moves from the music video to the Steps’ hit Scared Of The Dark at Brighton Pride.
And back in 2017, PC Daniel Graham made headlines for entertaining carnival-goers at the Notting Hill festival with his moves while on duty.
The dancing policeman was even told ‘you must be an undercover raver’ while manning barriers at the carnival.
But in the subsequent years, officers have faced a dance ban so they are not distracted and can ‘keep a better eye on what’s going on’ around them.
A video of Lincolnshire Police officers was posted over the weekend and showed the officers enjoying themselves at the Pride festival
The officers may all be able to keep in time, but many questioned why they were on-duty at the festival instead of fighting actual crime
These five police officers were branded a ‘disgrace’ for performing a TikTok-style dance in a north London suburb with a high crime rate
Footage from a ‘youth engagement’ community event in Edmonton shows the four PCs and a sergeant busting moves to Run-DMC’s 1983 hip hop song It’s Like That
Student officer Gorvinder Chima is seen showing off his moves alongside a group of female dancers at a stall outside the stadium in Perry Barr, Birmingham
It appears Mr Chima ends up leading the routine as he switches dance moves and the others begin to follow suit
All the moves: The Hertfordshire police officer is seen breaking into a dance routine to the Steps smash hit ‘Scared Of The Dark’ during the Brighton Pride festival in 2017
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