Actor Morgan Freeman broke with the progressive left during a recent interview and said he does not support the movement to strip funding from police departments across the country.
"I’m not in the least bit for defunding the police," Freeman said in an interview with Black Enterprise’s Selena Hill. "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 was promoting his new movie, "The Killing Of Kenneth Chamberlain," which centers around the story of an elderly Black veteran being killed by police.
Frankie Faison, who co-stars with Freeman in the film and plays the man shot by police, agreed with Freeman in the interview about defunding the police.
"Well, I agree with Morgan," Faison told Hill. "I’m certainly not in favor of defunding policemen."
Faison did add that Hollywood stars are "treated a little differently by law enforcement than people who are just of ordinary walks of life."
"I would like for that to stop, I would like for us all to be treated equally," Faison said.
Earlier this year, Freeman and a criminal justice professor donated $1 million to the University of Mississippi to establish a Center for Evidence-Based Policing and Reform.
"Look at the past year in our country – that sums it up," Freeman said in June. "It’s time we are equipping police officers with training and ensuring ‘law enforcement’ is not defined only as a gun and a stick. Policing should be about that phrase ‘To Serve’ found on most law enforcement vehicles."
