Most of the time, big groups of teenagers and police officers don’t mix.
When teenagers get together, they seem to get a little bolder and a little less rational. Police are aware of this, so they usually keep a close eye on them, which sometimes make things worse.
One police officer recently surprised a large stadium of people with his behavior toward a group of high schoolers at a football game.
The game was held at Appleton East High School in Wisconsin, and they were playing their rivals, from Appleton North.
Both sides of the bleachers were getting a little excited and started to chant and cheer. When the school resource officer realized that students were getting rowdy, he decided he needed to get a little closer in case something went down.
You never know when one kid could start a fight, and before you know it, both sides are going at it. That would be a pretty big fight to break up. Of course, the student section wasn’t happy about the officer walking up to the bleachers.
They felt like they were behaving just fine and deserved to be left alone to cheer on the team.
As he walked up the steps of the bleachers, the kids started making fun of him by making siren sounds and moving their hands around their heads in a circle. The officer didn’t mind; he was on a mission.
One of the students was already standing up when he approached and asked the student to have a seat. Again, the rest of the students were pretty upset about it and couldn’t figure out why he was acting like that when they hadn’t done anything wrong.
But when the officer got up there, he did something that shocked them even more.
Instead of taking out his handcuffs or reading someone their rights, he turned toward the field and the other set of bleachers and started a cheer.
He started stomping his feet on the ground and everyone behind him joined in. They started to mimic his moves, and he put on a complete show for the crowd. They all followed him as he curved his body one way and then back the other. They repeated it several times while stomping and cheering on the team. Nobody could believe what they were seeing. The school resource officer went from stopping all the fun to causing more of it.
The entire school was behind him, and everyone was screaming and cheering.
If the football team couldn’t feel the support and encouragement from the crowd before, surely, they did then. The school resource officer proved that he is their ultimate fan.
Even the parents were surprised to see his reaction. The Appleton Police Department saw it and shared the video online, where it got thousands of views. People just can’t stop talking about it. Even the police department seems to be proud of it. Who can blame them?
A lot of police officers get a bad rap these days, especially for their interactions with teenagers.
This very well could have been one of those videos. It sure looks that way in the beginning. Luckily, this officer chose to lighten the mood and has won over the students. At the end of the video, the officer turned around, and all the students started slapping him high fives.
It just goes to show you that sometimes you just have to get on a kid’s level and have some fun with them to earn their respect. The students likely see the resource officer differently now.
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