Police officers in Austin, Texas have recently debuted a new addition to their uniform at a local event: light-up sneakers.
A viral TikTok with over 1.3 million views as of Saturday shows several officers from the Austin Police Department wearing light-up sneakers as they patrol a gathering.
Content creator Rana Saifi (@rainasaifi15) shared the video. In it, two Austin police officers walk back and forth amongst a large crowd as the bottom of their sneakers flash colored lights of green, red, pink, and blue. As the video is filmed at night, the police officers and their “Skechers” stand out in the crowd.
The bolded text in the video reads, “Why do the Austin cops have light up sketchers.” Rana captions the TikTok, “kinda c*nty tho.”
@ranasaifi15 Kinda cunty tho
♬ original sound – Rana Saifi
In the comments, users humorously reacted to the officers’ shoes and speculated the reasons behind the wardrobe choice.
“Wee-woo shoes,” one commenter joked.
“They flash red and blue in a foot pursuit,” a second user wrote.
“Makes them run faster obviously,” came another user’s comment.
Some users remarked on the ingenuity of the shoes, saying that they make the officers more visible both to spectators and to other officers in a large crowd.
“Probably to help identify each other in case the crowd gets unruly,” a viewer reasoned.
“Somebody probably complained about them not being visible. I love it!” reacted another viewer.
Other users were far more interested in the notion of adult-sized light-up shoes than the officers and their reasons for wearing them.
“Wait!!!,” one user wrote, followed by a string of wide-eyed emojis, “I can get light up shoes as an adult??? Where has this been for the last two decades????”
“The question should be, why don’t we all have light up Skechers?” another viewer questioned.
While it is unclear if the officers are indeed wearing actual Skechers in the video, it is unlikely — according to the shoe brand’s website, its S-Lights line of sneakers is exclusively a children’s shoe design.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Rana via Instagram message and the Austin Police Department via email.