TikTok
A drunk 19 year-old man who accidentally broke into an Airbnb to sleep things off “woke up in handcuffs,” officers joked in a TikTok that went viral over the weekend. Deputy Charles Pesola of the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office in Montana posted a video telling the story of how he and a group of officers rented an Airbnb in Wisconsin while on a work trip.
“This silly guy found the one Airbnb in all of downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin, loaded with cops,” Pesola said in the clip. At the end of the video, which shows the man’s face multiple times, Milwaukee deputies lead him away. According to a local news station the man “wasn’t cited or charged” for the incident.
Pesola told KMOV4 that he posted the video because, “Cops have a hard time right now, and when they can see we’re still having fun and still real people and we’re good, it’s a good thing.” That’s a common refrain among popular cop influencers who post to TikTok under hashtags like #HumanizeTheBadge or #BacktheBlue. (Pesola has over 200,000 followers, and the clip has been viewed 173,000 times.) Videos like these can be interpreted as damage control or PR for cops who ignore the systemic problems of policing. A representative for Flathead County Sheriff's Office could not be reached for comment on its social media policies.