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The Chatter

Baltimore City Police Department is “Happy” like Pharrell Williams

BCPD hits 50,000 Twitter followers and celebrates with YouTube dance video.

By Ron Cassie | July 1, 2014, 12:07 pm

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It doesn’t hurt to show that cops are human beings once and a while. We also don’t doubt that there’s something to be said for the Baltimore City Police Department’s community engagement via Twitter.

But Monday, when the BCPD reached 50,000 Twitter followers and celebrated with a YouTube dance video, not everyone thought—given the ongoing violence around the city—that a video showing seemingly the entire department dancing to Pharrell Williams’s feel-good, neo-soul hit, “Happy,” was appropriate.

We’ll leave it up for you to decide. At the end, City Police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts touts his department’s social media outreach efforts and thanks the department’s Twitter followers.

“Today, I’m happy—50,000 followers on Twitter headed for 75,000,” says Baltimore City Police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts. “One of the most of any police department. Thank you for helping Baltimore to be safer.”