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NYPD Union Boycotts Quentin Tarantino's 'Depraved' Films After Police Abuse Protest

The head of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association called Tarantino a “purveyor of degeneracy” after the film director spoke at a #RiseUpOctober rally over the weekend.
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The New York Police Department union has called for a boycott of Quentin Tarantino's movies, after the film director participated in an anti-police violence protest in New York City over the weekend.

Tarantino flew in from California to speak at the rally, which was the third #RiseUpOctober event over the past week and organized by the Stop Mass Incarceration Network.

"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 film director said to the crowd in Washington Square Park, according to the New York Post.

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Patrick Lynch, president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, called Tarantino a "purveyor of degeneracy" in a statement on Sunday.

"It's no surprise that someone who makes a living glorifying crime and violence is a cop-hater, too," said Lynch. "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."

Lynch said that New Yorkers "need to send a message" to Tarantino that he is not welcome in the city to "peddle his slanderous 'Cop Fiction.'" Lynch did not offer details about how the union plans on implementing the boycott.

About 300 demonstrators gathered for Saturday's protest in Manhattan's Washington Square Park and marched two miles up Sixth Avenue to midtown. NYPD officers, decked out in riot gear, arrested 11 people, including a 70-year-old woman, reported Gothamist. Most of those were arrested for disorderly conduct, obstructing pedestrians, or failure to disperse.

The protest came four days after a New York City cop, Randolph Holder, was shot and killed after pursuing a suspect on foot in East Harlem. Holder was the fourth NYPD officer to have been killed in the line of duty in the past 10 months. When the Post asked Tarantino about the timing of the rally, he called it "unfortunate," adding, "We've flown in all these families to go and tell their stories….That cop that was killed, that's a tragedy, too."

Tarantino's eighth film, an American Western titled The Hateful Eight, will be released on Christmas Day.