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Tarantino Won't Bend To Police Union Boycott: "I'm Not Being Intimidated"
By
Christopher Robbins
Published Nov 3, 2015
Modified Nov 3, 2015
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By
Christopher Robbins
Published Nov 3, 2015
Modified Nov 3, 2015
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Despite headlines this morning suggesting that Quentin Tarantino was "expected to apologize" for his comments at a protest against police brutality in Manhattan last month, the director has instead responded to a law enforcement boycott with refreshing honesty. "All cops are not murderers," the director told the Los Angeles Times. "I never said that [all cops are murderers]. I never even implied that."
Here is what Tarantino is quoted as saying at the rally, held in Washington Square Park on October 23rd.
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. 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 deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner (and many others) were declared to be homicides; President Obama has spoken about the "slow rolling crisis" of "what appears to be police officers interacting with individuals, primarily African-American, often poor, in ways that raise troubling questions."
Still, NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton answered Tarantino's comments as if he'd never been splattered with fake blood: “There are no words to describe the contempt I have for him and his comments at this particular time.”
It's worth quoting Tarantino's response to the boycott at length:
"What they’re doing is pretty obvious," he said. "Instead of dealing with the incidents of police brutality that those people were bringing up, instead of examining the problem of police brutality in this country, better they single me out. And their message is very clear. It’s to shut me down. It’s to discredit me. It is to intimidate me. It is to shut my mouth, and even more important than that, it is to send a message out to any other prominent person that might feel the need to join that side of the argument."
"I'm not being intimidated," he said. "Frankly, it feels lousy to have a bunch of police mouthpieces call me a cop hater. I'm not a cop hater. That is a misrepresentation. That is slanderous. That is not how I feel.
"But you know, that's their choice to do that to me. What can I do? I'm not taking back what I said. What I said was the truth. I'm used to people misrepresenting me; I'm used to being misunderstood. What I'd like to think their attack against me is so vicious that they're revealing themselves. They're hiding in plain sight."
Tagged
black lives matter
Blue Lives Matter
quentin tarantino
Christopher Robbins
Christopher Robbins is a New York City reporter covering transportation, affordable housing, local politics, and criminal justice. His work has also appeared in New York Magazine, The Village Voice and The New York Times. Chris is a graduate of Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Virginia, and enjoys biking to Fort Tilden in the summertime.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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