Sirdarius Benton, Deputy Sheriff with the Henry County Sheriff’s Office, is spreading smiles to the community through his love of dance and comedy.

  Dubbed the “Dancing Cop” by his coworkers, Benton posts dance, comedy, and inspirational videos to his Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok accounts.

  “It’s all about making people smile. At the end of the day, a smile goes a long way. It shows happiness, joy, peace. A smile is just everything to me,” said Benton. “I have so much joy to spread so I do it through my laughs, my smiles, my comedy, my dancing.”

  Benton says that he has been dancing since he was young and was influenced by The King of Pop, Michael Jackson.

  “[I’ve been] dancing since I was little, before I can even remember” he said. “The first person I fell in love with was Michael Jackson. His moves and his spirit, I just kind of picked that up and I’ve been dancing ever since.”

  He began making the videos and loading them onto social media in 2018 while he was with the Henry County Police Department. His very first dancing video was to Drake’s song “In My Feelings.”

  “I actually danced right in front of the Krispy Kreme. It kind of went viral then because it was a hot new challenge that was out. I was in uniform, and then I was in front of Krispy Kreme, so it was like a cop at a donut spot,” said Benton.

  However, he stopped posting videos shortly after and picked it up again in 2019 when he participated in Blanco Brown’s Git Up Challenge.

  “That video has over like 45 million views now. I was on the news several times in different states for that video and ever since then, I just decided to dedicate my time and my talents to making people smile, laugh, inspire them and just get people dancing,” he said.

  Another influence to his posting the videos came in 2018, while he was working with the Henry County Police Department, when he was given “a second chance at life” following a high-speed chase that turned deadly.

  “I ended up crashing my vehicle. It flipped a couple of times and my car went into a ditch” said Benton. “One of my coworkers told me that I had a big gash in the back of my head. So they rushed me to the hospital. I had to have brain surgery.”

  After that incident, Benton decided to use his second chance to bring joy to others.

  “I feel like God gave me a purpose and now I feel like I’m seeing what that purpose is actually about,” he said.

  Benton said that the ultimate goal for his platform is to attempt to change the negative public perception of law enforcement and to connect with the surrounding community in a positive way.

  “The way the world is now with people not trusting the police, people are against the police. We used to have a good relationship with our community and I feel like we lost that. So, yes it’s to make people smile, but it’s also an icebreaker to bridge that gap back towards the community,” said Benton. “I feel like we need to become one again. I try to use what I can to bring people back together.”

  He also hopes to use his talents to relate to area youth while also providing a space for them to view law enforcement in a positive light.

  “I’m using this platform to reach younger generations because that’s the thing for younger generations, social media. So I use that tool as a positive instead of a negative,” he said. “I want the youth to understand and realize that I’m human and this is a job that I chose to do, that I respect my job and I respect them. I want them to realize there we’re not here to be the bad guys. We’re here to put away the bad guys. But we’re also here to teach lessons. We’re here to help them out, to protect them, to serve them. And I don’t want them to be afraid of us.”   Benton’s videos can be found on Twitter at @IamDeputyB, TikTok and Instagram at iam.deputyb and on YouTube at TheBenton’sWay.