Kansas City Cop Tries His Best In Dance Contest With Kids — What If All Police Took This Approach?

While in Ferguson, just outside of St. Louis, Missouri, police and protesters continued to clash over the tragic shooting of an unarmed, African-American teen by a white officer, just down I-70 in Kansas City, relations between police and local kids took a slightly different turn, as a video that went viral over the past week, rather hilariously, shows.

The video was taken on August 10, when a 28-year-old Kansas City patrolman, Officer Jeff Krebs took some time to challenge some local kids to dance-moves showdown.

Krebs has won praise for setting a great example of how police-community relations can be improved. Unfortunately, as you’ll see in the video, he sets a rather poor example for dancers everywhere.

The Kansas City Police Department was so proud of its officer’s community outreach efforts that the KCPD posted the video on its Facebook page. The department was somewhat less proud of Krebs’ moves, however, which included a bizarre, arms-flapping maneuver he dubbed “The Octopus,” as well as an attempt at a break-dance back-spin that, shall we say, didn’t end well.

The KCPD unequivocally declared Krebs the loser of this impromptu dance battle, though Krebs has convinced himself that he did pretty well.

“What I was thinking was, I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Krebs later said. “When I went through the (police) academy and when I first got hired on, I told them how I wanted to interact with the community and start building some rapport with the citizens because I feel like if we build rapport with them, then they’re more likely to call us when they need us.”

As for the Kansas City Police Department’s assessment of its officer’s performance, the department said, “Maybe we’ll start including dancing as a course at the Academy, because it sure looks like we could use it.”