Watch a sheriff twerk with Daytona Beach party girl: ‘Social distancing is not a crime’
Pandemic? What pandemic?
Hundreds of partiers celebrated their (restricted) freedom Memorial Day weekend by flocking to the Daytona Beach boardwalk.
The Volusia County Sheriff’s Office was on the scene Sunday to help up break up the crowds, providing an assist to the Daytona Beach Police Department.
“We got slammed,” Volusia Sheriff Mike Chitwood said at a news briefing later in the day. “Disney is closed, Universal is closed. Everything is closed. So where did everybody come with the first warm day with 50 percent opening?
“Everybody came to the beach.”
The Volusia County Sheriff’s Office released aerial footage showing the masses of people and a man in a car throwing cash out of the top.
Chitwood also released a video showing him approach the driver of a Jeep who didn’t want to stop the party. She got out of the car and began to twerk, a suggestive dance some say made popular by Miley Cyrus at the 2013 VMA awards.
Instead of telling her to stop, Chitwood for a second grabbed her lightly from the back to partake in a little shimmy action.
“All my friends in the local Monday Morning Quarterback Club are saying I should have thrown her on the ground and dragged her to jail for Twerking in Public. WTF?” the law enforcement chief wrote on his Facebook page. “Daytona PD called us in to help restore order and that’s what we did. The approach we took worked. No rioting, no looting, no burglaries, no loss of life.”
Neither the sheriff nor the woman were wearing masks, but Chitwood says that it’s very difficult to enforce CDC beach reopening guidelines. These include keeping strangers six feet apart to prevent the spread of germs from the coronavirus.
“Social distancing is not a crime. It’s an executive order issued by the governor that no prosecutor in the state of Florida has prosecuted anybody for that, and no judge is going to convict them,” he said.
Comments under his FB post were for the most part positive and many praised him for the job he and the agency did to keep the beachgoers under control.
“Hell sheriff, handling that situation within two hours with no riots, That in and of its self is an astonishing accomplishment! Proud to have you as our Sheriff!”
“Love it!! Just 30 seconds or so of a little harmless fun in what I’m sure was a stressful night! You go girls! You go Sheriff Chitwood! Not everyone was being out of control or causing nuisance!”
“Totally digging your sense of humor and ability to get jiggy with it. Especially when you’re calling out people. Fine job of handling the situation and showing the citizens that you’re human and have a sense of humor too!”
This story was originally published May 27, 2020 at 11:21 AM.
