Hollywood Star Morgan Freeman Shows Up at Local Police Department to Help Select New Officers
Actor Morgan Freeman found a role he wanted to repeat, and the Gulf Shores Police Department in Alabama took him up on it.
Freeman owns property in Gulf Shores, according to WPMI-TV. In October 2021, he joined the police and several community residents as they conducted an oral screening of potential candidates for the department.
Freeman, an Academy Award winner, reprised the visit last week, the department posted on its Facebook page.
Actor Morgan Freeman paid a visit to the Gulf Shores Police Department Wednesday. — https://t.co/t80wz1bArv pic.twitter.com/w7WcrBgIYz
— WEAR ABC 3 (@weartv) February 1, 2023
In 2021, as many black celebrities attacked the police, Freeman moved in a different direction.
“I’m not the least bit for defunding the police,” Freeman said in an interview with Selena Hill of Black Enterprise.
“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 policemen that have never pulled their guns except in rage, that sort of thing. I don’t know.”
Morgan Freeman Blasts ‘Defund the Police’ Movement to Anti-Cop Reporter –https://t.co/MhDvSyOqEu ✅
Via – @NeonNettle#NeonNettle— The Scary Guy Podcast (@scaryguy) October 11, 2021
In June of that year, Freeman was among the donors to the University of Mississippi so that it could establish a Center for Evidence-Based Policing and Reform, according to Fox News.
“Look at the past year in our country – that sums it up,” Freeman said then.
“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.”
That fall, Freeman joined the Gulf Shores department as it reviewed candidates to become police officers, according to AL.com.
The department said it always invites local residents and a group of professionals to discuss applicants.
“It was kind of a last-minute thing, but he was an active participant,” Deputy Chief Dan Netemeyer said then, according to Fox News.
Candidates to become Gulf Shores police officers recently met with typical interviewers as they were sized up for the job. One interviewer they were likely surprised to see, though, was Morgan Freeman. https://t.co/xzPBXmiwAp pic.twitter.com/jHAjQGqRxf
— AL.com (@aldotcom) October 23, 2021
“He had a hat on, and he was kind of sitting back. When he introduced himself, it was almost like an old ‘Candid Camera’ scene,” Netemeyer said of the 2021 interview session.
He said there was no doubt who was speaking when Freeman talked.
“It was that voice, the same one you hear in the movies,” the deputy chief said.
Freeman, 85, has won one Oscar, in 2005 for best supporting actor for his role in “Million Dollar Baby.”
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