Quentin Tarantino has made some enemies at the New York Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, following his appearance at a rally against police brutality and murder Saturday.
Tarantino’s comments came at the conclusion of three days of “Rise Up October” rallies and actions in Gotham, protesting not only the actions of police, but courts that “continue to exonerate these killers.” Speaking at Saturday’s culminating rally, Tarantino said, “I’m a human being with a conscience. And if you believe there’s murder going on then you need to rise up and stand up against it. I’m here to say I’m on the side of the murdered.”
The NYC police union was more concerned with this comment: “When I see murders, I do not stand by. I have to call a murder a murder and I have to call the murderers the murderers.”
His comments were reported by the New York Post , along with the grammatically-challenged commentary “the ‘Pulp Fiction’ auteur blathered to a cheering rally-goers” and criticism for holding the rally four days after NYPD Officer Randolph Holder was shot on the job. (“It’s like this: It’s unfortunate timing, but we’ve flown in all these families to go and tell their stories,” Tarantino told the notoriously right-wing paper. “That cop that was killed, that’s a tragedy, too.”)
The Post also carried the statement from Patrick Lynch, president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association. “It’s no surprise that someone who makes a living glorifying crime and violence is a cop-hater, too,” Lynch’s statement asserted. “The police officers that Quentin Tarantino calls ‘murderers’ aren’t living in one of his depraved big-screen fantasies — they’re risking and sometimes sacrificing their lives to protect communities from real crime and mayhem. New Yorkers need to send a message to this purveyor of degeneracy that he has no business coming to our city to peddle his slanderous ‘Cop Fiction.’ ”
“It’s time for a boycott of Quentin Tarantino‘s films,” Lynch concluded, the only logical takeaway from an event like this.
Though the event’s organizers obtained proper permits, eleven protesters were reportedly arrested by the NYPD, including a 70-year-old woman and a man holding a two-year-old on his shoulders, and injuring several more. Neither Lynch nor the Post had any comment on those arrests.
[via The Wrap ]