Denzel Washington hailed a hero after helping a homeless man in police encounter

Don’t you love it when your big screen favourites are caught doing something heroic in real life?

Denzel Washington is the latest example of that, after he stopped and helped a homeless man who was, as TMZ reported 22 May, “in some peril with oncoming traffic.”

Video footage of the Training Day star, which shows him comforting the man by patting him on the shoulder and waiting with the man during an encounter with police, resurfaced online Thursday. Shot 21 May, it shows Washington and the officers on the scene each wearing a face mask throughout the interaction.

TMZ reported that the man was “detained — not sure why but possibly to make sure he was okay — then released.”

The Los Angeles Police Department did not respond to a question of whether the man was arrested.

A rep for Washington told Yahoo Entertainment the actor was unavailable for comment.

However, the internet could not stop talking about Washington’s good deed. The two-time Oscar winner’s name began trending on Twitter, on a day when interactions that black men, like the one Washington was filmed helping, have with police was very much on people’s minds.

Read more: Denzel Washington’s MacBeth will be a ‘crime thriller’

Protests against police violence broke out around the country this week, following the death of 46-year-old George Floyd, who died 25 May in police custody after a white police officer knelt on his neck for more than seven minutes on a Minneapolis street. While officers have argued that Floyd was resisting arrest, surveillance video and witnesses say otherwise.

They also applauded him for just being a “good dude,” who was willing to help in a situation where not everyone would have done the same.