This Freeman Won’t Bow To Public Opinion

A local man stubbornly refuses to change his personalized license plate, despite the recent insults he’s received.

Patrick Freeman has his last name on his plate for seven years, long before the freemen created national news with their threats, bad checks and eventual standoff with the FBI last spring in Garfield County.

“I still get comments, but it’s slowed down now,” said Freeman, 83. “There were probably 100 comments about my license plate, all of them derogatory,” he said.

During the standoff, Freeman parked his car on Central Avenue. A man who spotted the license plate kicked his car, then walked on.

Later, as he was driving through a Great Falls neighborhood, a man shouted to him, “If you drive by here once more, I’m going to shoot you.”

He said no one bothered to ask him why he had “FREEMAN” on his license plate.

“People lack a sense of inquiry,” he said. “All they do is react.”