Quentin Tarantino Faces LAPD and NYPD Boycott After Comparing Cops to Murderers

BY Josiah HughesPublished Oct 28, 2015

Quentin Tarantino's films have always ruffled feathers, but now the veteran director has got two entire police forces speaking out against his work. After the director attended an anti-police brutality rally, both the Los Angeles and New York police departments are calling for a boycott of his work.

As MSNBC reports, Tarantino attended a RiseUpOctober rally in New York City over the weekend. He was quoted by EW as saying, "I'm a human being with a conscience.... 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 use of the word "murder" is the particularly irksome part for the police departments. Patrick J. Lynch, president of the New York Benevolent Association, said, "It's no surprise that someone who makes a living glorifying crime and violence is a cop-hater, too."

Craig Lally, president of the Los Angeles Protective League, added to the backlash, saying, "We fully support constructive dialogue about how police interact with citizens. But there is no place for inflammatory rhetoric that makes police officers even bigger targets than we already are. Film director Quentin Tarantino took irresponsibility to a new and completely unacceptable level this past weekend by referring to police as murderers during an anti-police march in New York."

"Hateful rhetoric dehumanizes police and encourages attacks on us," Lally continued. "And questioning everything we do threatens public safety by discouraging officers from putting themselves in positions where their legitimate actions could be falsely portrayed as thuggery."

If the boycott follows through, don't expect too many police officers in the audience when Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight opens on Christmas Day.
 

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