Proving that his support for the police is serious, Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman recently joined an interview board for Alabama police recruits to help officials evaluate possible hires.
Freeman was one of a seven-member board who met with nine police recruits looking to join the Gulf Shores Police Department, Deputy Chief Dan Netemeyer said Wednesday, according to Fox News.
The Dep. Chief added that Freeman is not the first civilian to sit in on the interviews and that the city often asks local civilians to join the interview board.
“It was kind of a last-minute thing, but he was an active participant,” Netemeyer said of Freeman’s participation.
Freeman, who owns property in Gulf Shores, was joined by a criminal justice professor as the civilians sat in with the police and government officials tasked with reviewing the young police candidates.
This is not the first time that Freeman, 84, has shown his support for America’s police. Early this month, the Driving Miss Daisy star came out against the “Defund the Police” movement.
In an October 7 interview with Black Enterprise magazine’s Selena Hill, Freeman said he is “not in the least bit” in favor of taking money away from America’s police departments.
“I’m not in the least bit for defunding the police,” Freeman said in the video interview. “Police work is, aside from all the negativity around it, it is very necessary for us to have them, and most of them are guys that are doing their job. They’re going about their day-to-day jobs. There are some police the never pulled their guns except in rage, that sort of thing. I don’t know.”
Freeman also put his money where his mouth is by donating one million dollars to the University of Mississippi to help establish the Center for Evidence-Based Policing and Reform. The center’s goal is to develop ways to train police to better engage the community in crime prevention and conflict resolution.
The actor, whose recent film The Killing Of Kenneth Chamberlain premiered this month, has shown his support for police before all this, too. Back in 2016 Freeman happily posed for photos with a grin and a thumbs up with several officers in New Mexico when he was there filming Villa Capri.
Still, despite his opposition to “Defund the Police,” Freeman is decidedly liberal with his support for other political issues.
Most recently, he has jumped onboard campaigns for coronavirus vaccinations and masking, and was seen on The Daily Show shaming those who are vaccine-hesitant.
In 2018, Freeman joined celebrity-led efforts to defund the gun maker Remington Arms by pressuring Bank of America to revoke a loan to the company. In 2017, Freeman pushed conspiracy theories about then-President Donald Trump colluding with Russia during the 2016 presidential election. Later those conspiracy theories were proven to be false.
However, the cancel culture turned against him despite his left-wing advocacy. The star found himself a target of the #MeToo mob, when CNN published allegations that Freeman committed sexual harassment or inappropriate behavior in 2018. Several companies stopped using promotional material featuring Freeman, though the actor maintained his innocence and demanded a retraction from CNN President Jeff Zucker.
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