Miss. deputy gains popularity on Tik Tok

He plans to use his social media platforms to help spread mental health awareness.
Perry County Sheriff's Deputy Ryan Williams says he plans to use his social media platforms to help spread mental health awareness.
Published: Aug. 5, 2022 at 8:45 AM CDT
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PERRY COUNTY, Miss. (WDAM) - Deputy Ryan Williams has been in law enforcement for 10 years and currently works for the Perry County Sheriff’s Department.

“When it comes to doing his job, he’s one of the best, and he does a very good job at it,” Sheriff Mitch Nobles said. “Since he’s been in my department, for the seven, eight months he’s been here, he’s made numerous felony cases on drug arrests, and he’s very good at that. He’s out there doing his job, doesn’t complain, he works hard for the department, and he helps us out in a lot of ways.”

Williams is a familiar face in the community and on social media. In the past seven months, the sheriff deputy, also known as ‘Mr. Tik Tok’ at the department, has caught the attention of thousands of people online.

“My first video was November of 2021, and it was a video of my dog, and next thing I know, I started getting several followers, and within about six months, I had about 300,000 followers, and then it’s just kind of taken off from there,” Williams said.

He currently has about 889,000 followers on Tik Tok. Many of his videos have received millions of views and plenty of comments. Some of his fans even joke about committing crimes just to be able to meet him.

“I’ve seen a lot of, ‘Where do I need to get arrested at,’ ‘I’ll come speed through your county any day,’” Williams said.

All jokes aside, Williams said he plans to use his social media platforms to help spread mental health awareness.

“If I can make somebody laugh throughout the day, or just encourage them to have a better day, then that’s what it’s all about for me,” Williams said.

“It shows that he has a real side to him,” Nobles said. “It’s kind of like teachers and any other profession. You just look at them as a teacher or a deputy, but we’re all real human beings here.

“We’re no different from anybody else. I’ve got my personal Facebook page, I don’t have the followers that he has, but I have my personal page. We all have normal lives outside this department.”

Williams said he’s still shocked by all the attention, but overall, he’s extremely grateful for the support he’s received.

“I would just like to thank the sheriff and our admin here for allowing me to do this, you know, in my free time and allowing me to have a life outside of work because there’s a lot of places that you can’t do this with, and I’ve been blessed, and I don’t take it for granted,” Williams said.

Williams also has 228,000 followers on Facebook and 118,000 on Instagram.

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