Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino is expected to apologize for remarks last month in which he appeared to compare police to murderers, according to Hollywood trade website The Wrap.
Tarantino’s statement, made at a rally in Washington Square Park on Oct. 24, provoked intense backlash from all over the country, including NYPD Police Commissioner Bill Bratton. Many police unions have called for a boycott of Tarantino’s films.
“If you believe there’s murder going on, then you need to rise up and stand up against it,” Tarantino said. “I’m here to say I’m on the side of the murdered.”
It was not immediately clear when Tarantino would issue a potential apology.
A representative for Tarantino did not respond to a request for comment on a possible apology Monday.
His father, Tony Tarantino, said in a statement the director joined the “anti-cop protests” because “he lets his passion blind him to the facts and to reality.”
“I love my son and have great respect for him as an artist, but he is dead wrong in calling police officers, particularly in New York City where I grew up, murderers,” Tony Tarantino said in a statement through the NYPD police union on Friday. “I wish he would take a hard, dispassionate look at the facts before jumping to conclusions and making these kinds of hurtful mistakes that dishonor an honorable profession. We have many friends and relatives who have served honorably in the NYPD and the LAPD and, clearly, they risk their lives to keep the rest of us safe. Cops are not murderers, they are heroes.”
Appearing on the “The John Gambling Show” last month, Bratton said Tarantino should not have made the remarks, noting “we’re grieving the murder of a NYC police officer,” referring to Det. Randolph Holder.
Pat Lynch, president of the police union, called for a boycott of Tarantino’s films following the statements at the rally.
“It’s no surprise that someone who makes a living glorifying crime and violence is a cop-hater, too,” Lynch said in a statement on Oct. 25. “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.”
