Recruitment, Retention, Resilience, and Rhythm: A Conversation with BJA and the Dancing Cop

KARHLTON F. MOORE: Trust and relationships are vital for the safety of police officers and the communities they serve. I recently had the pleasure to connect with my friend and veteran of the Columbus Ohio Police Department, Officer Anthony Johnson, for a conversation on community policing and his journey to becoming a police officer. Known as the Dancing Cop by his thousands of social media followers, AJ’s life story reveals lessons on community policing and the importance of recruiting officers who have grown up in the very communities they protect and serve.

KARHLTON F. MOORE: Well, I'm so pleased to be home here in Columbus, Ohio. It's a rarity for me to be able to spend this much time at home and I'm so glad that I have the opportunity to sit down with my friend and colleague, Anthony Johnson, or AJ. I know him as AJ. We've worked together for a long time. And I know so many of you know him as a dancing cop. So, he's more than a dancing cop and we're going to get into that and learn a little bit more about him. So AJ, why don't you just start off and share a little bit about kind of what it was like growing up here in Ohio.

ANTHONY JOHNSON: Yeah. I'm actually born and raised right here in the city of Columbus. Unfortunately, not ideal living situations growing up. I grew up in a pretty rough area. At the time, it was probably one of the more rough areas in central Ohio. It was actually so bad that it had a nickname and the nickname was Uzi Alley.

KARHLTON F. MOORE: Yes.

ANTHONY JOHNSON: And they called it Uzi Alley due to the amount of violent crimes that were committed using, like, fully automatic weapons. So as you can imagine, not ideal living situations living in Uzi Alley. Small bed, small two-bedroom apartment. Me, my mother, my brother who's older by six years, so we really didn't have that connection plus him and I have different fathers, and my father, who I'm sure we'll talk about a little bit. And yeah, I mean, just, I would say your typical inner city life. Doing things I wasn't supposed to be doing, wrapped up in crowds I shouldn't be wrapped up in. You name it, I was probably involved in some sort of sense or fashion. If I wasn't, then my close friends or family members were; saw a lot, did a lot growing up, so yeah.

KARHLTON F. MOORE: So Uzi Alley – I think if you're from Columbus or you lived in Columbus for any period of time – everyone has heard of Uzi Alley. So I didn't know that that's where you grew up.

ANTHONY JOHNSON: Yup.

KARHLTON F. MOORE: Tell me about, like, growing up. Did you play sports or anything like that?

ANTHONY JOHNSON: No, no. At the time, to play sports, you had to pay for it. I mean, we really didn't have any money. My father, addicted to crack cocaine, functioning alcoholic, so when he did have a job, when he would get paid, he would just be gone and, you know, by the time he got back, we wouldn't really see much from the fruits of his labor. And my mother worked three jobs, and that was really just to support the family, right? Keep food in the refrigerator, to keep the lights on, electricity, a roof over our head, clothes on our back. So we really couldn't afford to play sports. Because of that and because my mother was working three jobs, I was just in the neighborhood hanging out with the local people who lived in the neighborhood. You can imagine what they were doing out there and the things that they told me, and the reality that they showed me which really shaped the foreseeable future of my life, I'd say from the time that I was born to about 21.

KARHLTON F. MOORE: So what are some of those things you said that shaped your life moving forward? So what are some of those lessons you learned from those folks in the neighborhood?

ANTHONY JOHNSON: Yeah, that's a great question. I think you learn or develop a certain intellect, like when you grow up in an environment like that, just because your actions could cost you your life. And something as simple as wearing the wrong color in the wrong neighborhood, at least back then, it could, like, legitimately cost you your life. So you just learn how to navigate in that just, like, rough terrain. So you develop a certain intellect and how to figure out what to do, what not to do in the blink of an eye. So, you know, I'd say I definitely developed that. I learned the street smarts. I saw drug deals. I saw people get shot. Actually someone got shot who was trying to rob my mother while my mother was holding me as I was a baby. So that was just like my lifestyle. I mean, the police helicopter was constantly over our apartment.

There was a murder that happened next door to where we lived. Not to mention the things that were going on inside of my home because of my father's habits and the things that he struggled with. So I definitely learned a lot, but not a lot of things that your typical young child and young adult would learn as far as like book smarts go, right? You know, math, history, the basic things you learn in school, I unfortunately didn't acquire. The teachers did a great job but they were doing as good as they could in the environments that they were teaching at. Even in school, we would have teachers getting in fights with students and then the students' parents would show up and then they would fight the teachers. I mean, it was just a very chaotic environment. So, yeah, it was-- it was interesting.

KARHLTON F. MOORE: Do you think most people have an appreciation for the impact of growing up in that type of environment, what that's like?

ANTHONY JOHNSON: I don't. And the reason I don't think that is I don't think a lot of people can grasp, like, what really happens. Like right here--right here in Columbus, like, right there where you live, where you were raised. There are areas where just, like, unspeakable things happen. Children see the unthinkable, the unimaginable. They have to go through things. Not to get to into it, we can if you want, but I mean, you know, I watched my father beat my mother almost daily to the point where she would have to wear turtlenecks and big glasses to hide her black eyes and her bruises. He would beat us. He would sexually assault her and we would hear, sometimes see it. And these are things that just a lot of people don't realize happen.

So to answer your question, I would say a majority of people don't. They don't understand what it's like to live in an environment like that. And to make it to the point where you have the opportunity to make it out of an environment like that and what it takes to get to that point, so I don't.

KARHLTON F. MOORE: So let's move now. Let's talk a little bit about--well, let me--let me go back to what you just said, because I can't help but think about if we're not--most of us aren't aware that or have no appreciation for that reality.

ANTHONY JOHNSON: Yeah.

KARHLTON F. MOORE: I mean, what you just described in growing up is more trauma than most people will experience their entire lives.

ANTHONY JOHNSON: Correct.

KARHLTON F. MOORE: But yet there is this expectation that you're going to go to school, you're going to get good grades, you're going to follow, you're going to live the straight and narrow.

ANTHONY JOHNSON: Yeah.

KARHLTON F. MOORE: And you're going to go to college and then, you know, graduate from college, get a career and lead a nice, happy life.

ANTHONY JOHNSON: Yeah.

KARHLTON F. MOORE: And so how do we, you know, as someone whose real focus is on trying to help make communities across our country safer.

ANTHONY JOHNSON: Yeah.

KARHLTON F. MOORE: And a lot of that, making communities safer, does not involve at all the criminal justice system, right? That is what happens when a community is not safe. But what are the types of things that you think would be helpful? I know I'm putting you on the spot.

ANTHONY JOHNSON: Yeah, yeah.

KARHLTON F. MOORE: For a kid like you when you were growing up in an environment like that.

ANTHONY JOHNSON: I hate to break it down to, like, this one word, but compassion. But I think part of compassion is like understanding as well, like in order to be compassionate about something, you have to understand, like, what that person is going through or what it is that you need to be compassionate about. So for the general public and more specifically for people in the field of, like, law enforcement, you just have to understand, like, what's going on in the area in which that you serve in whatever capacity that looks like and that looks like engulfing yourself and submerging yourself in that, in that community. So that way you truly know what's happening. And I know we'll get there, but I credit a lot of that to the success that I've had, like, in my career is I have a good understanding of what happens in these communities.

Therefore I have a natural compassion for the individuals who live in these communities and it helps me navigate through the complexities of being a law enforcement officer in these high-crime areas, in these areas where most people are scared and intimidated. So I think to answer your question, it's--you have to submerge yourself into culture, have a certain level of cultural competency. And that will naturally allow and gravitate you towards having compassion and understanding of what people are going through because everyone's fighting a fight. Everyone's fighting a fight. That fight looks different. There's different degrees. Some are mental, some are physical, some are a combination of both, and you're never going to understand what that fight is until you understand what that fight is.

KARHLTON F. MOORE: Okay. So you described how you grew up.

ANTHONY JOHNSON: Yup.

KARHLTON F. MOORE: So naturally you're going to become a police officer.

ANTHONY JOHNSON: No, no. It was--it was…

KARHLTON F. MOORE: So talk about that, like, and when you talk about it, talk about telling your family and your friends and the folks you grew up with, "Hey, I'm going to go be a police officer, Five-O, whatever."

ANTHONY JOHNSON: Yeah, yeah. It was the last thing on my mind actually. I actually hated the police. I thought they were racist. I thought they were corrupt. I thought a majority of police officers became police officers because they got bullied in school, had a chip on their shoulder. And the reason being is, is that what's my environment told me. When I would turn on the radio, it was NWA, you know, very negative songs about the police. When I would turn on the news, they weren't sharing positive stories of police officers. They were showing clips of police officers beating people, shooting individuals. There were times when my father would beat my mother and we would have to run next door, we would call 911, and he wouldn't go to jail. But then in a weird way, the times that he would go to jail, I would still blame the police because even though my father was a horrible man and a terrible father, and I was the one who called the police, they're still taking my father away.

So I had that negative interaction even though it, they were doing their jobs and what they were supposed to be doing in that time. And, you know, I just, I had friends that were arrested, family members who were arrested, family members who were imprisoned. And at that age, that's who I blame. I just blame law enforcement, so I absolutely despised police officers. I was that person out there saying, "F the police," to be frank with you. And how that happened was, I was 18, I was living in a house at the time with a group of people who I thought were my friends, and the rent wasn't getting paid. So the homeowner shows up. It was news to me that the rent wasn't getting paid. We were giving my buddy money. He was pocketing it. He wasn't sending it to the homeowner. She showed up, essentially told us, "Hey, you have X amount of time before you have to leave the house."

So when I was 16, I was able to successfully separate my parents. That's a whole other story. That would kind of take some time. But because of that, my mother didn't have the little bit of income that my father was bringing to the house. So she lost the house that she was in. She was kind of in between living situations. And long story short, I was going to be homeless. I called up some family members, I couldn't stay with them. I called up friends, I couldn't stay with them. So I was just at the gym working out because somewhere in life, that's what someone or something showed me when you're going through a difficult time, you work out and I was like this super-scrawny kid that had no idea what he was doing at the gym. But I'm working out and this older gentleman who was in, like, great shape walks over to me and he just gives me some advice on how to work out.

And I was completely rude to him, cussed him out. That night, I thought about it and I'm like, you know, "This was the one light that I had in this, like, very dark world, like this was the one person that went out of his way to be positive and kind to me. And what was my response?" So I made it a point to go back to the gym that next day hoping that he would be there. He was. I apologized. He took me under his wing, like, right there on the spot. He's like, "You know, it's okay. I get it. You know, you're at a weird age." At the time, I was maybe like 19. He's like, "If you want to work out with me and my buddies, you're more than welcome. We work out at this day, this time, Monday through Friday." I'm like, "Absolutely." Because they were all just, like, Arnold Schwarzenegger, right? I thought, "Yeah, absolutely. I want to look like you guys." So we just started working out and he found out my situation that I was getting ready to be homeless and he opened the doors to his home to me.

He didn't--he see--he saw something in me that I didn't see myself. So I found out around that time that he was a police officer and he just turned my world upside down. Because everything that I was shown up until that point was you can't trust the police. But in my deepest, darkest hour, it's a police officer, a middle-aged white man police officer that's reaching his hand down to help lift me up. So I took him up on his offer. I ended up moving in with him. And he planted that seed, you know. "You should become a police officer and go back to the area in which you were raised and just be a light in that community." And the rest is history, yeah.

KARHLTON F. MOORE: Oh, wow.

ANTHONY JOHNSON: Yeah.

KARHLTON F. MOORE: That's an amazing story.

ANTHONY JOHNSON: I appreciate it. He's a brother to me. He's a guardian angel. I still talk to him to this day every day. And yeah, yeah, the rest is history. Like any good gardener, he continued to water that seed. Of course I was apprehensive. I thought he was the one smoking weed, right? Like, "You want me to be a police officer?" And he's like, "Yeah, you can." And we butted heads so much because, like, I was frustrated, because once again, like, you're not understanding who I am.

KARHLTON F. MOORE: Uh-hmm.

ANTHONY JOHNSON: Like don't put this pipe dream in my head that I could be this police officer and I could save the community in which I was raised. Like you don't know who my father is, you don't know my living situations, like you don't know who my family, my friends are, the things that I'm involved in, like don't tell me this. And any good gardener, he continued to water that seed, water that seed, you know, you can make a difference. This is how much they make. This is--these are the benefits. Imagine what you could do, like, how much you can help your mother with this job, how much you can help your friends and family who are going through the things that you're going through. And I put my application in for the city of Columbus. A year-long process, and I made it all the way to the end, and they didn't accept me. And I wasn't ready. You know, I now know that I wasn't ready at that time. So I was devastated. Me and him get into it again. I'm like, "I told you, you know, I wasted all of this time." Like you said, right, like when I finally decided that I was going to do that, now I have to tell my friends and family. And I remember vividly telling a group of my friends, people who I thought were my friends, "Hey, I'mma be a police officer." And they're laughing in my face, like, "Dude, what?" And I'm like, "No, I'm serious." "You're a snitch. You're turning your back on the hood. We're going to shoot your mom's house up." I mean, like, this was the response I got, right? So, like, really no external support. My mother loved the idea because it was something positive, right? But aside from that, like, I didn't tell half of my family members. So when I didn't get accepted into the Columbus Police Academy, my guardian angel, the same person who initially planted that seed, he told me, "Hey, there's a regional academy. You could go through that, but it costs $5,000." I don't have $5,000. No one in my family has $5,000. People that I know don't have $5,000, at least legitimately. So it's out of the question. And he paid for it.

KARHLTON F. MOORE: Wow.

ANTHONY JOHNSON: He paid for it, I graduated president of that academy, I put my all into it, I just--I dedicated my life, I quit both of my jobs that I was working at that time. I graduate. He helps me get my first job at a local hospital here that helped my commission. And then I get another actual police job at a small village by the name of Obetz, which is just southeast of Columbus. I worked there for about a year and a half and then I just kept getting that tug, you know, "You're meant to be in Columbus, you're meant to be in the area in which you were raised." So I put my application back in, a year later, I'm sitting in that same interview room, they're asking these difficult questions. And I remember one of the interviewers asked me, he said, "You know, AJ, if we didn't want you X amount of years ago, what makes you think we want you now?"

And my response to him was, "Well, sir, with all due respect, if you don't want me now, I'll be back next year. And if you don't want me then, I'll be back the year after that, and eventually you'll get tired of seeing my face. And I'll be ready and you'll hire me." And they hired me.

KARHLTON F. MOORE: Oh, that's wonderful. You know, sharing that story, I just can't help but think, because we're really focused at BJA on officer recruitment and retention.

ANTHONY JOHNSON: Yeah.

KARHLTON F. MOORE: And there are so many people who would be great police officers, but they haven't run into that person.

ANTHONY JOHNSON: Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I say this all the time. We are our best recruiters, you know. Like, it was one--it took one positive police interaction to forever change my life. And there are now so many police officers that credit them being police officers to the work that I've done, and them seeing me on social media or have their conversations with me. And that all comes from that one positive police interaction that I had. So, like, imagine if every law enforcement officer, I believe there's over a million law enforcement officers in the United States, went out there and with that one positive interaction every single day, what would our recruitment and retention look like? So yeah, you're right. There are a lot of people who they don't think it's a reality, they've never even legitimately thought about it.

And my message is, you know, to the officers out there, like, show them. That's what it took for me. It took for me to see, "Wow, this is a human being behind this badge, a caring human being. And he believes in me." And at that time, aside from my mother, that was the only person that ever believed that I could do something positive. A lot of people believed that I could be the best drug dealer or the best gang member or these very negative things, you know, "AJ is crazy, he's the craziest," right? He was the first person to come in and, like, "No, you could really be something good, like, something positive. So be that. Be that to the community that you serve." And to the civilians, this job changed my life. Like, this job changed my life. To this day, I pay all of my mother's bills, her car note, she doesn't want for anything, and it's all because of this job.

Like, this opportunity here, like, speaking with you, like, our friendship came from this job. Like, so many doors have opened from this profession, so give it a try, like, see where it takes you.

KARHLTON F. MOORE: So let's go to when we first met. And I don't know if I've ever told you this, but I was--you know, we have the collaborative, the Ohio Collaborative Community-Police Advisory Board.

ANTHONY JOHNSON: Yeah.

KARHLTON F. MOORE: And our FOP member was leaving, and so I get a list of, I don't know, three names, four names, whatever it is that they would send me. So I'm looking at this list, and I think they were, like, in rank order.

ANTHONY JOHNSON: Yeah.

KARHLTON F. MOORE: Right? And so I'm looking at people's backgrounds. And I see your picture and I read a little bit about you. And I'm like, "God, this guy, he looks familiar to me for some reason." And I really didn't think that much more about it, but I did see it said you had a social media following. So I remember thinking, "You know what, we had been criticized because we didn't have younger voices as part of the collaborative," actually, as part of the governor's task force on community police relations.

ANTHONY JOHNSON: Yeah.

KARHLTON F. MOORE: And so I was like, "You know what, let's go with this guy. So I remember I called, and it was the FOP and then the governor's office and said, "Hey, look, Anthony Johnson, that's going to be our person." So I had no idea. I had no idea at that time that you were the “Dancing Cop,” as a matter of fact, someone said something to me about, "You know that's The Dancing Cop?" And I was like, "No, I don't know," but I was on my way to something else so I was like, "Okay, that's great," so off I went. So tell me about how you go from the guy who's never going to be a police officer, dealing with all this trauma growing up, you meet this guy, now he convinces you to be a police officer. Columbus doesn't want you, now you're in Obetz, and you make your way to Columbus, and now you are the “Dancing Cop.” So how did that start?

ANTHONY JOHNSON: It was very organic, actually. So when I first joined law enforcement, my first real police job in a patrol car, Obetz Police, it blew me away how many people, one, hated the police, which I shouldn't have been surprised by that because that was my environment, but the degree in which people hated the police. And then two, the amount of, like, negative publicity around the profession. I mean, I just, like, at that time, I felt like a police officer could run into a burning building and rescue 10 kids and the story would be "Police officer didn't rescue the cat that was in the building," right? Like, it was just so frustrating because once again, like, my life is turning around because of a police officer. And I'm dedicating my life to this profession and to make it better.

So I make an Instagram page, and initially, the reason I made this Instagram page was just to take pictures and videos. Actually, it was just pictures at that time because Instagram was just pictures. Pictures of me interacting with the community for my family and friends to see. Because I want to show them, "Hey, I'm doing good, I'm making a change, you don't have to hate the police," you know, and to show police officers, right? Because now I have police officers who are following me on this page, my coworkers, and I want to show them, "Hey, you could get out of your car and play basketball, play rock, paper, scissors with the community. It doesn't always have to be an enforcement action. So that was it. And it really wasn't anything, it was private.

I had my small group of friends, and I was--fast forward, I get hired with Columbus, still private, still small of group of friends, just a little larger, and I'm driving down the street and I smelt barbecue. And I love me some food. So I tell my partner that I'm working with, I go, "I'mma get me some food." He's like, "There's zero chance that you, in this uniform, are going to pull up to this backyard barbecue and get a plate." I'm like, "Watch me." So I pull out, there's--and it's, like, jumping in this backyard, the music playing, there's kids dancing everywhere, I mean, like--and we pulled up. Everyone's kind of like, "Oh, the police are here." So the song was playing, and at the time, the song had a dance attached to it. And I don't know why, for the life of me, I have no idea why I knew how to do this dance, but I did. Like, I don't know if I saw somebody do it or what.

But I go in the backyard, everyone was like, "Oh, yeah, come back here," and the kids were doing the dance. So I just do the dance with the kids to the song. Unbeknownst to me, the woman whose house it was, she recorded it. And she put it on social media and it blew up. I mean, the video went viral. The next day, all the local news stations are calling me, the local paper, they're calling the radio stations, somehow they got my personal phone number, they're calling me, "Hey, can we set up an interview?" I'm just like, "What is happening?" The story behind that is, it wasn't just a barbecue, it was a welcome home from prison party for her brother, and here I am, a police officer, in his backyard, dancing at a welcome home from prison party. So it was just super impactful on so many different degrees, right?

So I do the interview, fast forward a short time, maybe six months after that, I get a message from Harvard. And they're like, "Hey, we saw this video, some of our students know who you are, like, we'd love to have you out and speak to some of our public policy students at the Kennedy School of Government." And I'm like, "Okay." It took me five years to graduate high school, summer school, every single summer, credit recovery every single year, I still almost didn't graduate my fifth year. Never stepped foot on a university as a student. Never. Not one day do I have any college credits, any of that, and Harvard wants me to come out and talk to them? So I go out there, I speak to the class, I would like to think I did a good job so I'm meeting with the professor afterwards.

And I'm sharing some of the videos and pictures out on my Instagram, he's like, "The world needs to see these." I'm like, "Well, I don't know, I got pictures of, like, my mom on here, like, my cousin." And he's like, "You know, you could always, like, just remove them and make it public." So it probably took me three hours straight, like, I just went through the entire page, my entire Facebook. Removed pictures of my family and friends, that way, they weren't on there, and I made it public. And within two to three months, the “Dancing Cop.” I mean, he's dancing with these kids, he's playing rock, paper, scissors, tic-tac-toe, he's racing kids on foot, he's checking in on kids' homework, and it just became this sensation of, really, things that I would do anyway.

Like, these are--who doesn't play rock, paper, scissors, who doesn't want to race down the street? It was just the fact that I was in uniform in an inner city area, high-crime area, doing these things. People just loved it and it blew up. I mean, it's--I think it's safe to say that I'm probably one of the most recognizable police officers in the world because of that. I mean, I've had organizations reach out to me as far as El Salvador. I've been to El Salvador. I've worked with the police agencies down in El Salvador and more specifically, La Libertad, which is one of their higher-crime areas. Canada, Arizona, California, all because they see this work and they kind of want to, I hate to say mimic it, but do something similar to have, like, a similar effect.

KARHLTON F. MOORE: So, you go from, you know, the life you're leading to this guy who--this police officer, you have no idea it's a police officer, right? You're at a terrible point in your life. And he creates or he is that kind of shining star for you. And now you've come full circle. Because there are kids all over this city, kids all over this state, kids all over the world, who look at a police officer who represents a shining star to all of them. How does that feel? Do you have an appreciation for that?

ANTHONY JOHNSON: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's surreal. I get, like, a little emotional thinking about it. Yeah. Yeah. It--I think surreal is like the easiest way to describe it. I'm not doing anything extraordinary. I'm being a good person. The real surreal part about it is I am one of so many. There's so many police officers that go out there and do exactly what I do every single day. They just--it's just not highlighted. They don't have the personality to do it in front of a camera to where, for me, it was, "No, people need to see this. I'mma record it, I'mma put it out there because people need to see this. I'm tired of every time I turn on the news, it's something negative. I'm tired of when I turn on the radio, it's something negative."

"I'm tired of when I talk to my friends and family, it's something negative, so I'm going to allow people to see this positivity to change their mind, so that way when they talk to a friend or family member, they go, 'Well, there's that one cop that races kids in, I want to say Ohio, maybe Columbus.'" And then what that turns into is, "His partner's kind of cool, too. He's always in the videos." And then what that kind of turns into is, like, "Well, there's another guy in the video who did that one thing, he's cool too." And then before they know it, they're like, "Why is like 10 police officers I just named that I think are kind of cool?" And it changes that mindset of, "I hate the police, I can't trust the police" to "Well, I guess all of them ain't bad."

And then it snowballs. I mean, I've got so many stories of people who absolutely hated the police and now have multiple police officers' personal phone numbers in their phone they could call 24 hours a day. And it's all because they see them as a human. Like, when they see me racing a kid down the street, when they see me playing rock, paper, scissors, it's, like, my uniform isn't on anymore, it's like, "Oh, it's just AJ." It's AJ being AJ. And the moment they see me as a human being, it's easy for them to go, "Well, AJ ain't perfect. AJ's going to make mistakes. AJ is going to have to be the enforcement side of law enforcement sometimes, and his partner's kind of cool. He introduced me to his partner." And it's just a snowball effect of, like, positivity.

So when you ask what it's like to be looked at in the light that I'm often looked at in, it's surreal, it's a heavy weight because all eyes on me, right? Especially if I'm out doing enforcement action of any type, but it is the most rewarding job and rewarding thing I've ever done in my life.

KARHLTON F. MOORE: Well, AJ, that is a great place to stop. I have so many more questions for you, but unfortunately, we are out of time. Maybe we can do a part two in DC?

ANTHONY JOHNSON: Let's make it happen.

KARHLTON F. MOORE: I know I'll probably see you on the mall again.

ANTHONY JOHNSON: Absolutely.

KARHLTON F. MOORE: All right. Hey, it's been so great to catch up with you.

ANTHONY JOHNSON: Likewise.

KARHLTON F. MOORE: Thank you.