By Police1 Staff
LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles police union backs the New York City union’s boycott of Quentin Tarantino for his part in an anti-police brutality march, MSNBC reported.
The Los Angeles Police Protective League voiced support for the New York Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association and their call to not support Tarantino films after he used the term “murder” to describe officer-involved shootings. Tarantino had been part of the march against police brutality organized by RiseUpOctober.
“It’s no surprise that someone who makes a living glorifying crime and violence is a cop-hater, too,” head of New York City police union, Patrick Lynch, said in a statement posted on the union’s website. “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.”
The protest occurred in the wake of the killing of another New York officer. Officer Randolph Holder was shot to death Oct, 20 in a pursuit of a bicycle thief.
The LA union president, Craig Lally, said in a statement 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,” Lally’s statement said. “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 has yet to comment on the criticism.