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Famed American actor Denzel Washington breaks with Hollywood’s Progressive narrative and has declared his “utmost respect” for American police officers and soldiers in an interview with Yahoo Entertainment.
The actor of iconic films such as Training Day and Malcolm X issued these comments due to the release of a new project in which he participated alongside fellow Oscar winners Rami Malek and Jared Leto, called The Little Things, where he plays Joe Deacon, a Los Angeles County detective who pursues a serial killer.
“I have the utmost respect for what they do, for what our soldiers do, [people] who sacrifice their lives. I just don’t care for people who look down on those types of people. If it weren’t for them we wouldn’t have the freedom to complain about what they do.”
Denzel Washington in his interview with Yahoo!
Denzel Washington proceeded to explain the reason for his respect for law enforcement officers and revealed that it was born out of first-hand knowledge after an incident he witnessed in 1991 while researching a role for the movie Ricochet.
“I went out on a call with a sergeant. We got a call of a distraught man outside his house with a rifle. 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, this man was their grandfather. This policeman defused the entire situation by just remaining calm. What stood out in the Glory‘s actor’s mind is that the officer was able to resolve the situation without the use of force.
“But it showed me in an instant how they can lose their life. … 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.” Washington said.
Denzel Washington was so scarred by his experience that he lived his own version of a tense situation in which he helped two Los Angeles police officers. As reported by USA Today, Washington saw a man on the side of the road and decided to pull over because he was concerned for his safety. He then helped the man to the side of the road. Another witness called the police.
One of the officers described the situation, saying, “We intervened, talked to the individual and determined that he didn’t want to harm himself or others, and he was on his way, and Denzel took off.”
Denzel Washington and BLM
In an interview for the film Roman Israel, Esq. which he starred in, he was asked about minority incarceration rates, to which Washington responded that “it’s more important to focus on our own homes.” “When the system steps into the plate, the damage is already done. They’re not incarcerating seven-year-olds,” he added.
He said he was in Chicago and was surprised to see children between the ages of eleven and twelve on bicycles with masks on the side of their heads. The driver he was riding with told him that these were “lil’ yummies.” In looking up what lil’ yummies were about, he discovered that the name came from an eleven-year-old murderer named Lil’ Yummy, killed by another fourteen-year-old. “Blaming the system? But where was his father? It all starts at home, and if the boy’s father was in jail… Well, where was his father?”
“My closest friends have been in jail for decades; one did fifteen to twenty, the other twenty-eight. Of the three of us, I was the only one who had a father in my life… And my father was a gentleman and a good example.”
Rafael Valera, Venezuelan, student of Political Science, political exile in São Paulo, Brazil since 2017 // Rafael Valera, venezolano, es estudiante de Ciencias Políticas y exiliado político en São Paulo, Brasil desde 2017