After a summer of protesting and riots against police brutality, the calls for defunding the police picked up, as did the rhetoric against them. From Hollywood to Congress, the war on cops was reignited. President Biden’s new deputy spokesperson at the State Department once even called police the "largest threat to U.S. national security."
Thus, it’s refreshing to see an A-list Hollywood actor defend police and the military — and do so in no uncertain terms.
"I have the utmost respect for what they do, for what our soldiers do, [people] that sacrifice their lives," Denzel Washington told Yahoo Entertainment. "I just don’t care for people who put those kind of people down. If it weren’t for them, we would not have the freedom to complain about what they do."
The comment came during an interview discussing his latest film, "The Little Things," which marks the 13th time in his acting career he’s played a law enforcement officer.
He said one incident forever changed his perspective on the work they do.
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“I went out on call with a sergeant,” he recalls of a ride-along while preparing to play a cop-turned-district attorney in the 1991 thriller Ricochet. “We got a call of a man outside his house with a rifle that was distraught. We pulled up and did a U-turn past the house and came up short of the house. He told me to sit in the car, which I was gonna do. I wasn’t getting out. He got out. As he got out, another car came screaming up and two young people jumped out screaming. As it turned out, it was their grandfather. This policeman defused the entire situation by just remaining calm.”
“But it showed me in an instant how they can lose their life,” he concluded. “He didn’t overreact. He could’ve pulled his gun out and shot the people that came up driving real fast. He could’ve shot the old man that was distraught and a bit confused, I think he was suffering a little bit from dementia. But in an instant, it taught me, and I never forgot it, what our law enforcement people have to deal with, moment to moment, second to second.” (Yahoo)
"The Little Things" is in theaters and on HBO Max.
