Alabama police officers' community outreach video goes viral
Anniston Police Department Chief Nick Bowles and Officer Jacob Ford discuss the unexpected reaction to their humorous TikTok video on 'Fox & Friends.'
An Alabama police chief and one of his officers have gone viral after they posted their department’s first community outreach video on "The TikTok."
Anniston Police Department Chief Nick Bowles and Officer Jacob Ford shared the hilarious footage earlier this week.
In the clip, Bowles struggles to make his first TikTok video — first holding his phone so his face isn’t fully in the camera, and later, referring to the social media platform as "The TikTok."
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Meanwhile, Ford continues to correct Bowles throughout the clip, including when Bowles uses a silly filter.
Eventually, Ford takes over the video and explains that the Anniston Police Department "started this TikTok page to kind of do a little community outreach and kind of reach out, so everybody can kind of get an inside look at what we do here."
Since it was posted over the weekend, the video has been viewed more than 348,700 times.
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Many commenters shared their love for the officers, especially for the chief.
One person wrote, "Jake, let him SHINE!"
"Can we just stick with chief from now on," someone else commented. "And we need more filters."
Another user wrote, "Quit trying to dull his sparkle! He’s a peacock, you gotta let him fly!"
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Ford told "Fox & Friends" that it was actually Bowles’ idea to pretend that he didn’t know what he was doing.
"His idea was, ‘Hey, I'm going to play that boomer guy who doesn’t really know what to do with the phone,’" Ford said about Bowles. "He was like, ‘I just want you to correct me constantly.’"
Ford said the video was done in one take.
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Bowles explained that he wanted the police department’s first TikTok video to be "relatable."
"Everybody’s got that parent or child, that relationship that, you know, you need to be corrected on all these new internet things that are coming out," Bowles told "Fox & Friends."
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Bowles said he also wanted to make the department seem more approachable.
"[It’s] no secret that law enforcement’s been kind of run over the past couple of years," Bowles said.
"So we wanted to show everybody in the community, especially younger folks, that we’re humans just like everybody else and we have a sense of humor."
Bowles said they didn’t expect the fun video to go so far beyond their community.
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"It’s been great. I’m getting texts, I’m getting emails … We’re just going to take it as far as we can," he said.
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