A police department is openly rooting for Grand Theft Auto VI to come out and the reason is pretty hilarious if a little too honest. The Greensboro Police Department in North Carolina posted that it wants the game here so everyone stays inside and gives its officers a break. It is a joke, obviously, but it is also the most relatable and positive take on the hype we have seen from law enforcement.
The post is as dry as it is viral. "GTA 6 needs to hurry up and get here so y'all can stay at home and let us catch a break," the department wrote, racking up hundreds of thousands of views. The bit writes itself: once the game is out, the theory goes, would-be troublemakers will all have their hands full in Vice City instead of real life.
This is not a rogue officer with a phone. The joke comes straight from an official account, the Greensboro PD account, in particular, run by the department's social media manager, Patrick DeSota, who took the pages over in 2023 and swapped the usual government stiffness for stand-up. His whole strategy is to make the badge approachable by making people laugh.
The GTA 6 post is mild by his standards. DeSota's greatest hits run from telling people to call the non-emergency line if their cocaine dealer shorted them to warning that anyone arrested tonight will only be allowed to call their ex. Then there is the now-famous sign-off, "drink some choccy milk, have a little snacky snack, and don't crime," which the department turned into charity merch. Some of his posts have even cleared tens of millions of views. Although the approach is not without critics, officers say residents bring it up and like it.
Police riffing on GTA is not new, either. UK forces have used Grand Theft Auto in their own posts, including a Derbyshire video mocking a car-chase suspect for missing the launch, telling him to save it for the streets of Vice City. Rockstar Games, for its part, has stayed quiet, with no reply to Greensboro and its focus fixed on its own launch rollout.
Greensboro PD's viral playbook
The post | The joke |
|---|---|
The GTA 6 one | Hurry up and release so people stay home |
Cocaine dealer | Call the non-emergency line if yours shorted you |
Arrested tonight | You will only be allowed to call your ex |
The sign-off | "Drink some choccy milk... and don't crime" |
The results | Posts into the tens of millions of views |
Greensboro PD's GTA 6 joke is mild next to the account's usual viral material.
The overlap between governments, the law and GTA keeps growing. We have watched real GTA 6-style cars patrol Miami, traced the real-life moments behind the first trailer, caught the trailer sneaking into a Florida Highway Patrol reveal and even seen a Liberty City police car patrolling New York, the real-life basis of the setting for Grand Theft Auto IV. A department begging for the game to drop so crime slows down just as data shows a suspicious time off surge coinciding with November 19 fits the pattern perfectly.
It says something about this game that even those enforcing the law are counting down to it. The joke works because everyone gets it, just like with the South Park running gag, and GTA 6 is about to swallow a lot of free time.
Greensboro PD can only hope the quiet shift it is dreaming of really comes true.