Dancing Police Officer Gets Into The Mardi Gras Spirit

Ralphie Aversa

At Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans, even the police officers know how to have a good time.

For years, partygoers have witnessed Detective Winston Harbin bust a move on the dance floor. According to The Times-Picayune, in 1990 cameras from a travel show caught the 17-year veteran dancing in front of a New Orleans hotel. Last year, a video uploaded to YouTube of the Detective dancing received over 36,000 views.

But the latest clip of Winston partaking in the celebration is gaining national attention. Facebook user Ginger Morris filmed the dancing Detective doing “The Wobble,” a popular dance to a hip-hop song, and posted it on her page. More than 200,000 people have shared the clip. It also made its way to YouTube, where it has 370,000 hits.

“I was raised in the 9th Ward and learned to dance at all the Halloween parties,” Detective Winston told the New Orleans newspaper of his dancing origins. “I'm subject to the Wobble at any moment. I was walking down the street… and the song was on. I asked my partner, 'Should I Wobble?'”

Spoiler alert: he did. Winston also showed a little variety in his repertoire. Yesterday, cameras caught him dancing along to the “Cupid Shuffle.”

“The whole point of the video is to show that a family can have a great time in a beloved city that is well protected by individuals who have a heart and compassion for the people of their community,” Morris wrote on her Facebook page. “Thank You NOPD.”

“He was killing time waiting with the crowd, bonding, exercising too,” Linda Robertson commented on the Facebook video. “Great representation of a police dept. that does an excellent job of crowd control.”

When Detective Winston isn’t breaking out dance moves, he is trying to crack city homicide cases. His day job is far more important anyways, but a NOPD spokesperson, Officer Hilal Williams, joked, “His moves have gotten better.”