Our next guests are two police officers
from Buffalo, New York who went viral
after this video of them singing inside a restaurant
was posted online.
Please welcome officers Michael Norwood and Moe Badger.
[MUSIC - TONI!
TONI!
TONE!
- "FEELS GOOD"]
Hi.
How you doing?
Good.
Hi.
That was fantastic.
You rehearsed your walkout.
That's really amazing.
All right, so y'all are partners.
Right?
Yes.
OK.
And how long have you been partners?
Two years.
And what's the height difference?
I'm just wondering.
Well you he-- this the little guy.
You know?
Yeah.
And so he's about 6' 5", probably
with his muscles 6' 6".
I'm 5' 4 and 1/2".
I need every-- I need that half counts.
I see.
And what did you all-- you had careers before you
became a police officer right?
Yes, um-- I-- you--
Yes.
In fact, I played basketball my whole entire life.
I was playing professionally overseas in Finland
and then I actually broke my foot.
Yeah, and once I did that, I played
in a couple other various leagues.
And at that point I needed a new career change.
And I said, you know, I really want
to get back in the community and really work with the children.
And so, you know, I've been on the job now for about six years
and loving every bit of it.
Wow.
Well good for you.
Are you from Buffalo?
Yes, I am.
You are.
You are too.
Yeah.
I used to sing.
Well I still sing I guess, right?
Yes you do.
I was a gospel artist and I traveled around singing
and things like that.
And then I started working in the Buffalo Public Schools.
And we both love working with kids, so this has been the best
thing I've decided to do.
You know and it's funny because back home in Buffalo
they call us the Buffalo bad boys.
Yeah.
You know, because of you know the 90s movie?
Right, right.
With you know Martin Lawrence and Will Smith.
He's Marcus, married with kids.
And I'm like Lowrey, I'm single.
So this started because y'all sing in the car all the time,
right?
Yes.
Right.
All right and let's hear it like what does it
sound like when you're in the car together?
Well
Give her a little taste.
(SINGING) I got sunshine on a cloudy day.
When it's cold outside, I got the month of May.
Well I guess you would say what can make me feel this way?
My girl.
Talking bout my girl.
My girl.
Wow.
Fantastic.
So you know there are a lot of negative videos
out there with police officers in those.
This is a very positive one.
And you've made a big difference in the community, right?
You know, this has really been a really strong initiative
with our new Police Commissioner Byron Lockwood as well as
our Mayor Byron Brown.
You know, they wanted everybody to be community police officers
and really show people that, you know, we're human.
We're not, you know, what we see on the media stuff like that.
Right, right.
And you've started a foundation.
Tell everyone what that is.
Well the foundation to be honest,
Ellen, is something that happened organically.
Me, myself, and our other partner Lieutenant Todd
McAlister, you know, we grew up in inner city of Buffalo
and wanted to develop a program that would really give back
to the kids and really have long lasting
relationships with them.
Yeah.
The program is called COPSS.
C-O-P-S-S-- Children Overcoming Police Stereotypes through
Sports.
And
[APPLAUSE]
And what we notice is if we can catch them
when they're younger, you know, we're
coaching them, supporting them, whatever sport it may be,
or even singing now.
I guess it can be through singing too now.
Yeah.
But you know, whatever we can do to build,
to mend those bridges.
You know, that's what we've tried to do.
And now as they get older, they won't
have the same negative thoughts that they have of cops,
because we've dealt with them at a young age
and we built that trust with them.
That's so fantastic.
So we brought you here because we want to help support that.
For the past two seasons Cheerios and I
have been encouraging acts of good.
And we think what you're doing is a lot of good
in that community.
So we want to give your foundation a check for $10,000.
[APPLAUSE]
I want to hear about your acts of good.
Go to my website, tell us what you're doing.
We'll be back.