A Fun Way To Release Stress
Deputy Tony Scherb of the El Paso County Sheriff's Office in Colorado whipped and nae-nae'd his way out of 29 years of service last week — and the whole thing was caught on camera. Displaying his moves to Silentó's "Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)," Scherb managed to lasso some colleagues into joining him — but they quickly put on their best "work faces" when the boss came by. Judging by the 3 million shares the video's garnered, the entire Internet's celebrating with the newly retired background investigator.
Every day, Police Deputy Tony Scherb felt an enormous amount of pressure while on the job. He found a great way to de-stress by routinely letting off some steam in the elevator. No, not by yelling or punching an elevator wall, but instead, by dancing.
Its a stressful job
Police Deputy Tony Scherb worked for the El Paso County Sherriff's office in Colorado where 500,000 people live. As anyone can imagine, keeping all of those people can be a very stressful job.
However, that’s not to say that police can’t let loose every once in a while.
He was just about to retire
By the time 2016 rolled around, Deputy Tony Scherb was the longest standing officer in his department. Tony is the type of officer that's really earned his rank and respect over the years.
Over the course of his 29-year career, he’d served with the traffic unit and the transport and court departments. When his co-workers planned to plant a camera in the elevator, he was just about ready to retire.
He's very respected
After all the years and dedication he put into his department, he was one of the most highly regarded officers in his department. Many of his colleagues looked up to him as a role model and a source of guidance.
“Tony earned the reputation from his peers and supervisors as being highly professional and exceptionally knowledgeable,” a post on the department’s Facebook page stated.
Back in the habit
Tony had already made a habit of letting off some steam in his elevator rides by dancing his butt off, but around the time of the video, those elevators had been malfunctioning often.
So, an elevator technician installed a camera in one of them to see if he could find out what was going on.
Why was a camera installed?
As the camera rolled, Scherb walked into the malfunctioning elevator. He didn't seem to notice that there was a camera in the elevator at all.
He took a look at his phone to check the time, and then hilarity ensued right as one would wrongly think an elevator ride in a police department might be boring...
Nae Nae
He took a look at his phone to check the time, and then hilarity ensued as the music began to play inside the elevator.
Surprisingly, the song was Silento’s 2015 hit “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)”, and the camera caught his attempt dance along to the virally trendy dance moves spread nationwide by the song, something nobody would expect to see out of an old, white police officer.
Dancing
Scherb started grooving and flailing his arms around in his loose attempt at the dance. Surprisingly, he knew every word to the song.
So he convincingly lip-synced along to Silento’s rapping as he whipped (pun-intended) out the “whip/nae nae.”
It takes two to tango
One would think that when the elevator stopped, he would too to save himself from the embarrassment, but he rolled with it as another office jumped on the elevator.
He began staring her down without missing a beat, and sure enough, the mood was contagious as she joined him in the ridiculousness.
Stanky Leg
After only a few seconds, Reed caught a whiff of the vibe in the elevator and joined in on the fun. Together with Scherb, they shimmied around the elevator.
Then, the pair executed one of the song’s fan-favorite moves, the “stanky-leg”!
Pause
Then the elevator doors opened up to Chief Deputy Evans, their superior. At this point, both Scherb and Reed stood completely still, appearing to not want to upset their higher ranking officer.
They both stood there with perfect posture and gave a salute to their commanding officer, which would be well-received.
Infectious
The elevator would once again stop to let their commanding officer out, where they would immediately resume their fun. Then, as Scherb and Reed were gyrating away, a third officer joined them, and she quickly got into the swing of things too.
It was infectious.
Spreading the joy
Then came the moment when Sheriff Bill Elder entered through the elevator doors. Momentarily, the three cops stopped, apparently anxious about their boss’ reaction.
However, when the Sheriff busted out his own moves, the rest immediately followed suit, making everyone's day. It would appear to be the coolest police department ever.
Tribute
Following the delightful skit, then, the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office decided to post the clip to its Facebook page, not thinking anything would really come of it. They thought the video was a fitting tribute to Scherb’s dedication to public service.
Everyone knew him to be a fun-loving kind of guy, so this would be a great way to help spread the joy to everyone across the nation, but they never thought it would be as big as it turned out to be.
Raising awareness
Nobody expected this little dance video to go viral. Since they posted it back in 2006, over 7 million people have watched the clip.
Many praised the cops involved for showing a more human side to law enforcement, especially now in times where police are under more scrutiny than ever.
Dancing was a thing for this crew
“I’ve watched this about 30 times and it is absolutely hilarious,” one viewer wrote on Facebook in 2016. “It is nice to see officers having fun as their jobs are so stressful.
I worked for a Sheriff’s Dept. in WV for many years and we never had a sheriff that enjoyed cutting up a little with his employees.”
Fun way to celebrate
“We just thought, ‘Hey, let’s do something fun to celebrate his retirement,’” Jacqueline Kirby, media relations manager from the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office, told Today in 2016. “In the end, the response was way more overwhelming than we thought it’d be, especially for a law enforcement agency.” And the video certainly had the intended effect. “What we hope people see is that even though officers serve and protect as their main duty, they are human,” Kirby explained.
“They can have fun. And that’s what we did.”