It’s a “love train”.
Quentin Tarantino/Photo by Robert Miller – NY Post
NY Post: Just four days after the on-duty murder of a hero NYPD street cop, a rally in Washington Square Park against “police terror” devolved Saturday into a raucous, law-enforcement gripe-fest.
Protesters held signs reading “Rise Up! Stop Police Terror!” and “Murder with a badge is still murder.”
“No racist police!” some among the crowd of 300 protesters for the “Rise Up October” chanted, before the rally spilled out of the park and up Fifth Avenue to Times Square.
The NYPD arrested 11 protesters, charging most of them with disorderly conduct, obstructing vehicular traffic and failing to disperse. At least one was charged with resisting arrest.
Director Quentin Tarantino fired up the crowd by complaining that cops are too 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 “Pulp Fiction” auteur blathered to a cheering rally-goers.
As he spoke, Tarantino held up a blown-up photograph of Justin Smith, an Oklahoma man killed in police custody in 1999 after spitting on cops.
His words came just four days after the Tuesday-night murder of NYPD Officer Randolph Holder, the brave cop who was shot in the forehead while pursuing a gunman on foot through the streets of East Harlem.
Asked about the timing of the rally, Tarantino told The Post, “It’s like this: It’s unfortunate timing, but we’ve flown in all these families to go and tell their stories . . . That cop that was killed, that’s a tragedy, too.”
Activist professor Cornel West told the crowd that the purpose of the rally was still “love” for the victims of cops. “We’re here because we have a deep love for those who have been abused by the police. Don’t get it twisted — this is a love train!” West told the crowd.
Yesterday, NYPD union said they wanted New Yorkers to boycott Quentin Tarantino movies for his views on police. “It’s no surprise that someone who makes a living glorifying crime and violence is a cop-hater, too,” Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association president Patrick Lynch said Sunday in a statement.
That’s a request I can EASILY comply with.
DCG