‘Live PD’ Police Officer Accepts ‘Git Up Challenge,’ Garners Millions of Views, and Becomes a Viral Celebrity

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When you first see Officer Charlie Kingery of the Lawrence Police Department in his uniform and sunglasses, you don’t necessarily see the goofy dad who likes to dance with his kids in the kitchen. But that’s part of the reason why Kingery decided to take on a country/hip-hop dance challenge sweeping the country.

Kingery, who also has appeared with his fellow officers on the A&E hit reality show “Live PD,” thought his video performance would “get a few friends to like it and laugh about it,” as he told WXIN in Indianapolis. Instead, it went viral, with views of the video on multiple social media platforms in the tens of millions.

Kingery and his colleagues in police departments across the country were responding to hip-hop/country crossover artist Blanco Brown’s hit song. In the tradition of songs like the “Cha Cha Slide,” Brown details each move that challengers are to execute in the lyrics during the performance. “The Git Up” ended up at number 14 in the Billboard Hot 100, taking everyone by surprise.

When Kingery got wind of the challenge, he was ready for it. When asked about the origins of the video, Kingery told A&E, “I’ve been dancing since I was young, so I already knew about the song and the challenge.”

After Kingery got called out at a family gathering by a relative to perform the dance, some of Kingery’s friends came after him on Twitter, saying: “‘You’ve got to do this challenge. You’ve got to do it in uniform; it’ll be hilarious,’” he told A&E. In the video shot inside his house, Kingery shows some fancy footwork, pulling off the dips, shoulder rolls, slip and slide, two step, and butterfly, with surprising panache.

Not only did Kingery get amazing feedback from fellow officers and people all over the United States, he was even selected as “Dancer of the Week” by the famous dance troupe The Rockettes in August 2019.

The video wasn’t just for fun, though. “It’s nice to show people another side of us. A lot of people just see the uniform. They think ‘police officer.’ We’ve got lives outside of that,” Kingery told WXIN.

As part of this effort, he and his fellow men and women on the Lawrence force have been appearing in the A&E series “Live PD,” which shows the everyday ups and downs of policing. Regarding the show, Kingery told WXIN, “It’s a little awkward at first but it turned out to be a great experience … We kind of got to the point where we didn’t even think that they were there we just went about our business.”

In the wake of his internet dancing fame, Kingery has even seen some celebrity crossover. A response to a traffic call on “Live PD” turned into a dance-off with a mom and her two daughters who threw down the gauntlet.

As Kingery explained to A&E, “I rushed over to [a colleague], thinking that he needed backup on a traffic stop. I got out of my car, and I was like, ‘What’s going on, ma’am?’” Then she responded, per Kingerly’s recollection, “‘These girls in the backseat think they can beat you in a dance-off.’”