Cop’s hilarious traffic stops and surprise pro-drugs views make him YouTube star
It’s the middle of the day, and traffic’s picking up when Deputy Sheriff Frank Sloup spots a clunker of a sedan jumping a curb on a stretch of highway in rural Pinal County, Ariz.
Sloup, a 21-year veteran of law enforcement hits the flashing red and blue lights and siren of his department-issued, unmarked, hyper-fast blue Dodge Charger, and pulls the offending car over, only to find a meek, skinny teenager, seemingly lost in a cloud of recently burnt cannabis.
The teen does not know it yet, but he is about to become part of Sloup’s YouTube channel, “Fridays With Frank”: a funny, tough and often uplifting weekly compilation of the deputy’s stops — “Cops” crossed with “Reno 911” for the YouTube era.
It shows the 45-year-old Sloup confronting, ticketing and arresting speeders, drunks, stoners, and other law-breakers and miscreants with a mix of sarcasm — “you push that right pedal, you do go faster” — and compassion.
And it has made the deputy a star: Thanks to “Fridays with Frank,” Pinal County Sheriff’s YouTube channel now has 245,000 subscribers, while Sloup’s own contributions regularly clock over 1 million viewers.
His most recent episode took just three days to reach more than 350,000 views, making him quite possibly America’s most popular internet cop — with some unexpected views on drugs.
“When was the last time you smoked marijuana?” Sloup gently asks the teenager he has pulled over. “This morning,” responds the youth, his speech unduly slow.
“I can smell it,” says the deputy. “You know the other reason I stopped you?” he good-naturedly asks. “Did you feel yourself drive over that curb?
“Yeah,” acknowledges the driver.
After a roadside field sobriety test, where he humorously comments that the motorist is “rocking” Yeezy open-toe slides, Sloup handcuffs the stoner, placing him under arrest for “being under the influence of marijuana.”
In the Grand Canyon state, the three-year-old Drug Medicalization, Prevention, and Control Act, and the Smart and Safe Arizona Act states that only those aged 21 and above can legally possess marijuana.
Anyone under that age can only buy weed if they have medical marijuana identification cards, which the offender didn’t, earning him a booking. And his Yeezys earned the YouTube episode a search-friendly title: “Kanye Shoes.”
You might think that when it comes to drugs, like his pinch of the teen for weed, Sloup’s probably a hard-nosed, real-life Harry Callahan of the highway — the “Dirty Harry” character played by Clint Eastwood, who also used unorthodox policing methods.
Not so.
To promote his YouTube channel and his work for the sheriff’s department, Sloup recently appeared for more than two hours on “Blue To Green,” a pro-pot podcast whose host is cop-turned-outspoken stoner AJ Jacobs, who wants to “bridge the gap between the cannabis world and the law enforcement world.”
The two shared everything about drugs and law enforcement, except a joint. Sloup says he’s never smoked, not even a cigar. “I just don’t inhale stuff.”
Sloup told him: “My sister’s a giant cannabis user for years. She’s absolutely awesome. You can be super pro-law enforcement and a cannabis user.”
“Those two can exist on the same plane. I talk about drugs all the time, and I say I love drugs. I’m not using them, but man I sure play with people who are using them.”
Sloup emphasizes that when the grass and age are legal, “I don’t trample on rights. If you want to get baked, go for it. My job is not to just put bad guys in jail, but to make sure good people are not victimized.”
The episode starring Sloup garnered 878 comments – all in support of Pinal County’s favorite cop.
Sloup, an easy-going native of Long Island, NY, was a bartender before he moved west and became a law enforcement officer two decades ago.
Pinal County, the size of Connecticut, but with a fraction of its population, is just 50 miles from the southern border. Dominated by desert, it has been jokingly referred to by a local radio station as, “The land of the dirt people.”
Sloup, a lifelong bachelor who dates a police detective, rides Pinal County’s roads with a small microphone hidden under, or on his armored tactical, vest.
Also in the back seat of his cruiser is a professional cameraman-editor named Jack, and, on occasion, Sloup’s sprightly gray-haired mother riding shotgun.
She is prone to critiquing his often-outlandish law enforcement style, and even suggests who he should arrest, or give a break to. Sometimes he agrees. She calls him, “a very good son.”
Before “Fridays With Frank” went viral, Sloup happily went about his job anonymously. But now that he’s become a YouTube and social media sensation, with tens of thousands of avid followers, his life has drastically changed.
“I’m just a traffic monkey,” he notes modestly. “I write tickets, and now I’m in a restaurant and people come up to me, ‘Can I do a selfie with you? My wife and I watch your videos all the time,’ and it blows me away. To say that I’m humbled is a disgustingly gross understatement.”
Stops regularly feature people saying they know him from “Fridays With Frank.” There is even a local Facebook group called “Find Frank,” while children dressed up as him for Halloween.
But then there’s the dark side he faces with all the recognition.
“Death threats – detectives are working death threats on me. I’m a target now and I’m kind of hyper-vigilant.”
So how did Deputy Sloup become an internet star, who these days exchanges Pinal County Sheriff Department uniform patches with other cops around the globe who tune into “Fridays With Frank” online?
Sloup’s YouTube channel was given the green light by his media-conscious boss, outspoken and controversial Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, 50, who has made himself a frequent cable news voice critical of the Biden administration and previously of Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Lamb, an occasional co-star, is now running for the Republican nomination for the Senate seat held by Democrat-turned-Independent Krysten Sinema.
Sloup, who serves on the regional SWAT team as both an operator and a sniper when needed, considers Lamb a “rock star” and Pinal County Sheriff’s Department as “an island of awesomeness” where he gets both to do what he loves, and be YouTube famous.
“Initially, people get into this job for wanting to do something good… to get drugs off the street, kids from being victimized,” he said.
“I want to stop speeders so they don’t crash into innocent people. I really love traffic and SWAT. In the police world, I’m kind of weird. But both of them allow me to help people. All of that is doing good.”
