The union representing Los Angeles Police Department officers has joined New York City in its condemnation of Quentin Tarantino, demanding a boycott of the director’s movies following his comments about police brutality.
“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,” Craig Lally, president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, said in a statement Tuesday.
“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. He made this statement just four days after a New York police officer was gunned down in the line of duty.
“New York police and union leaders immediately called out Tarantino for his unconscionable comments, with union head Patrick Lynch advocating a boycott of his films. We fully support this boycott of Quentin Tarantino films,” Lally continued. “Hateful rhetoric dehumanizes police and encourages attacks on us. 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.”
Tarantino angered police on both coasts when he told a crowd of protesters at the rally in Manhattan’s Washington Square Park on Saturday that cops are often “murderers.”
“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,” the “Django Unchained” director said.
The rally came four days after NYPD Officer Randolph Holder was fatally shot in the head while chasing a gunman in East Harlem. When asked about the timing of the protest, Tarantino called it “unfortunate.”
On Monday, NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton slammed Tarantino during an interview on “The John Gambling Show” on AM 970, saying: “There are no words to describe the contempt I have for him and his comments at this particular time.”
Author, activist and scholar Cornel West helped organize the rally, which was billed as #RiseUpOctober. Several hundred people attended the gathering.