Toby Keith praises Las Cruces Police Department’s lip sync challenge

On Twitter Thursday, country legend Toby Keith praised the Las Cruces Police Department’s new lip sync video, which has already gone viral.

Keith gave the department a shout-out for the officers’ rendition of “Should’ve Been a Cowboy” in Las Cruces,” where he says he filmed his music video.

“It was a cumulation of everybody’s ideas,” said Lt. Joy Mickendrow. “It came out great! We hope the community loves it.”

The City of Las Cruces television department produced, filmed and edited the entire video in only five days.

“We knew we were a little late,” said Adrian Guzman, who works for CLC-TV. “They mentioned that they got a lot of requests, asking ‘Where’s their video?’ ‘Where’s their video?’ We knew we had to do it and it had to be good.”

The department explored multiple music genres in the music video, before finally deciding to go country for Keith’s top hit. The officers were led by Frank Ray, the LCPD officer who gave up a gun for a guitar and has a rising popularity in the country music world.

“We tried to do something that was a little bit different,” said Officer Israel Castruita. “We tried to put a lot of genres,” adding “We’re cops, we’re not dancers.”

The department challenged the El Paso Police Department and the Albuquerque Police Department.

“It’s all about community outreach,” said Mickendrow. “It’s all about showing everybody: ‘Guess what? We’re human! We like to have fun.'”