This week, the founder of Support Our Shields, Henry “Hollywood” Morris, joined Liz Collin Reports to talk about how he has logged thousands of miles to memorialize our first responder heroes through plaque presentations and moving videos — long after the headlines fade.
He has traveled upwards of 42,000 miles in more than three years to visit dozens of law enforcement agencies in 25 different states where an officer has died in the line of duty.
“It was watching the summer of madness, as I call it, 2020 … we literally saw this movement grow about defunding the police. Everything that happened in the wake of the George Floyd incident, watching police be demonized, not only in Minneapolis, but all across the country,” Morris said.
“Originally, I didn’t have the name ‘Support Our Shields.’ I was just running my small business and I wanted to reach out to a law enforcement agency,” he added.
Morris said it was when he set up a meeting with a police chief who had lost an officer in a small Florida town that the project took off. That police chief told him to keep going.
“And that led to another town and another town and three-and-a-half years later, like you said, half the states in the country, but it literally started in the wake of the defund the police madness,” Morris said.
Morris is open about the fact that he didn’t have an easy childhood growing up in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., as his parents struggled with substance abuse and domestic violence.
“One major difference was that when I was a kid, police were held as heroes all throughout society, whether it was TV or education. That was the norm for me,” Morris said.
It wasn’t uncommon for police to be called to his own childhood home.
“It was the way that those officers handle very difficult situations, with small children. I would say this about my parents also, they did not blame the police for their problems. They were honest that these were consequences of their own actions,” Morris said.
“It has been very heavy, especially in the last 12 months. What I realized is we’re going to have a lot of good officers retire early and walk away from the calling … what I noticed being out on the road is the age of the officers are getting younger and younger that we’re losing,” he added.
Morris made a trip this past summer to the area. He flew to MSP and drove to Fargo, N.D., to honor Jake Wallin of the Fargo Police Department. He then drove to Pope County to pay his respects to the Pope County Sheriff’s Office for the loss of Deputy Josh Owen. From there, he drove to Wisconsin where Hunter Scheel of the Cameron Police Department and Emily Breidenbach of the Chetek Police Department died in the line of duty. He also presented a plaque on the trip to the St. Croix County Sheriff’s Office where Katie Leising died serving.
“The bright light in all of it was the people that I met, you know, in Fargo, North Dakota, in Chetek, Wisconsin. I had never been to Wisconsin before in my life … but you meet some amazing people,” Morris said.
Morris said he tells the stories that it seems the mainstream media never will.
“It doesn’t create the narrative that cops are … out hunting unarmed black men … if it doesn’t fit that narrative, they could care less,” Morris said.
“I’ve learned about the lives that we’ve lost in the families that are left with a giant hole, because their husband, their son, their wife, their daughters are no longer with them, all because they literally answered that call and put their lives on the line for people they never knew,” he added.
Morris said he has received some resistance from churches and other nonprofits calling him a “sellout” for the work he’s been doing.
“There is a lot of the funding that comes from servicing the problems but never addressing them and that mentality has led to a more dangerous profession for law enforcement. When you combine the rhetoric that you’ve seen … it exploded in 2020, but if we go back to Ferguson in 2014, we’re talking about a decade timeline where this has been building and building. Now, we’re seeing all of the fallout from basically 10 years of what I call evil propaganda that is wreaking havoc on the men and women of law enforcement … they have a script that they stick to so they can continue to get the funding and they could care less whether the police are thrown under the bus as long as it enriches them,” Morris said in response to his critics.
“We must put silly differences aside and stop allowing what the enemies of freedom are using to divide us. In the case that we’ve seen in the last four years, it’s been our skin tone. We will lose the greatest country ever known to man and we can’t do this, we cannot continue to be cowards to comfort. We have to speak up and get active and stand up and stand with those who are literally dying for the freedoms that we enjoy every day. We cannot take it for granted any longer,” he added.
Hollywood Morris is using his retirement funds to pay for his own travel and time to put his videos together. You can help Support Our Shields by making a donation on his website.
Liz Collin
Liz Collin has been a truth-teller for 20 years as a multi-Emmy-Award-winning reporter and anchor. Liz is a Worthington, Minnesota native who lives in the suburbs with her husband, son and loyal lab.
