Aldin Hamdy (@get.the.stick TikTok screenshots)
A 29-year-old TikTok comedian in New Mexico with more than 100,000 online followers was arrested last week after he posted multiple videos to his social media account in which he donned a real New Mexico State Police uniform, rapping and performing skits about robbing cars, selling drugs, and taking bribes to get people out of jail.
Aldin Hamdy was taken into custody on Thursday and charged with one count of unauthorized wearing of a uniform or badge, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
The alleged crime is a petty misdemeanor punishable by a maximum sentence of six months in jail and a fine of up to $500.
The first video was allegedly posted by Hamdy on Feb. 7 and showed what appeared to be him, though aged several years, likely by one of the platform’s filters. He is apparently wearing the state police uniform and a banner at the top of the screen reads “New Mexico Officer of the Week.” In the video he says that for “50 bucks” he will get your “hito out of the bote,” the latter word being a slang term for jail.
A second video from Feb. 10 says that “Benny” has been “working undercover for the homies,” and features a 48-second verse in which the uniform-clad man raps about “boosting Hyundais.” There is also a line in the song that says, “yeah I got blues but that don’t make me a Crip,” referencing a street name for the drug fentanyl.
A third video from Feb. 12 appears to show Hamdy, once again through the aging filter, reading a list of five reasons to be a “crooked cop in New Mexico.” One of the reasons stated is so that “you can sneak burner phones to your homies at the MDC,” which is the Metropolitan Detention Center.
The state police were notified about the videos, which had been viewed tens of thousands of times, and were allegedly able to identify the man in the videos as Hamdy.
According to a report from The Santa Fe New Mexican, troopers with the state police went to Hamdy’s residence on Feb. 13 and interviewed him about the videos.
“I was given information about an individual whom was making videos nefarious in nature while wearing a New Mexico State Police uniform and referring to himself as an officer of NMSP as ‘Officer Sena,’ ” an officer wrote in a probable cause affidavit obtained by the station.
During the interview, Hamdy allegedly admitted to making the videos, telling authorities that he was helping a friend who works at a dry cleaner in Santa Fe, saying he put on the uniform and filmed all three of the videos without ever leaving the shop. Hamdy allegedly added that he was just “goofing off.”
An officer allegedly told Hamdy that the videos were “upsetting” to the department and did not line up with the agency’s “values.”
An individual who said he was a “producer” for Hamdy’s TikTok account said the police response to the videos was over-the-top, in an interview with the New Mexican.
“It really surprised us that they had time to go to his house and question him about why he did a video skit with the uniform,” the man said in the interview. “We were flabbergasted and a little confused about why a little TikTok comedy video would create such a stir for a department that we, quite frankly, thought had much better things to do.”
The “producer” also reportedly emphasized that there was “no question” that the individual in the videos was not really a police officer, adding that they were “obviously comedy.”
Hamdy was released from jail on his own recognizance and is scheduled to be back in court on March 4.
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