Actor Morgan Freeman said during a recent interview that he is not in favor of defunding police departments across the country.
"I’m not in the least bit for defunding the police," Freeman told 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 sat down for the interview to promote his new film, "The Killing Of Kenneth Chamberlain," which focuses on an elderly black veteran who died at the hands of law enforcement.
His co-star in the movie, Frankie Faison, who plays the victim of the police shooting, also said he does not believe that police should be defunded.
"Well, I agree with Morgan," Faison said in the interview. "I’m certainly not in favor of defunding policemen."
Faison also pointed that Hollywood celebrities are "treated a little differently by law enforcement than people who are just of ordinary walks of life" but that he "would like for that to stop," adding that he wants everyone to be treated equally.
Over the summer, Freeman and a criminal justice professor donated $1 million the University of Mississippi to develop 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."