Quentin Tarantino’s Cop Cousin Blasts The Director

Movie director Quentin Tarantino, famous for such films as Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, Django Unchained and the Kill Bill features, caused quite a stir when, speaking at a #BlackLivesMatters rally organized by the Revolutionary Communist Party last week, called police officers “murderers.”

That rather intemperate rhetoric has become a problem for Tarantino, as police unions across the country are calling for a boycott of his films and particularly the soon-to-be-released Hateful Eight. Now, a cousin of Tarantino’s who served in the NYPD and badly injured his back during a 1968 student riot has called him out for his statements

Quentin Tarantino’s cop cousin once almost died in the line of duty and has spoken out to say he is ‘shocked’ at the director’s bashing of police.

Frank Gucciardi, 81, was a father-of-three serving in the NYPD when he was told to respond to the Vietnam War protests at Columbia University on May 1, 1968.

He said he barely survived the riots at the campus in Morningside Heights, New York when students began to throw things down at officers and swung at them with tree branches.

Gucciardi told the New York Post he was one of only 10 officers sent to try to control the situation without any nightsticks or helmets because officials had though riot gear would send the wrong message.

He says he still experiences pain after his back was broken when he was nearly stomped to death by students.

It was his fellow officers who managed to swoop in and haul an injured Gucciardi to hospital in time to save him.

So Gucciardi, who now lives in Florida and has never met Tarantino, says he just doesn’t understand why his famous relative branded police officers ‘murderers’ at a rally protesting police brutality.

‘The police in this country are the first line of defense,’ Gucciardi told the Post.

‘I’m just shocked at the statements he made,’

Tarantino’s family problems go beyond the cousin he’s never met. His father, whom he did not grow up with, is also speaking out.

Tony Tarantino, 75, revealed this week that the famed director has three relatives, including Gucciardi, who served in the NYPD.

He told the New York Post: ‘When I read what my son said, it upset me. [We] have three cousins from the NYPD. I’ve seen and heard the things they go through, and to see them so discredited like this is really sad.’

He added: ‘The police getting such a bad rap, especially coming from my own son, is really sickening to me.’

His father says Anthony Massaro, a retired NYPD lieutenant who was a detective commander in the 9th Precinct in the East Village from 1991 to 2013, is Quentin’s distant cousin. Massaro, who has never met his famous relative, told The Post: ‘I totally disagree with everything he said. And I thought the timing of the whole thing was horrible.

‘The men and women of the NYPD do a phenomenal job and don’t get enough credit.’

‘Whenever someone says something like [what Quentin said], it makes police officers’ jobs a lot harder. It’s much more dangerous today than in my time. You hear about shootings constantly.

‘It’s gotten very bad for police officers to do their job. And my heart goes out to them.’

The timing of Tarantino’s comments, coming as they did immediately after the murder of NYPD officer Randolph Holder, couldn’t have been worse – and it’s entirely possible he might have turned the public against both himself and his style of almost comic-book style ultra-violent filmmaking.

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