A union associated with the New York Police Department has hit back at Quentin Tarantino after the director addressed an anti-cop rally in the city at the weekend, calling for a boycott on his films.

The Hateful Eight director, 52, appeared at anti-police demonstration in Washington Square Park on Saturday (October 24th) and gave a short speech to the assembled crowd, in which he accused the police of too often being “murderers”. The words were particularly inflammatory, as they came less than a week after an NYPD officer was killed on duty.

“When I see murders, I do not stand by… I have to call the murderers the murderers,” Tarantino said. Despite admitting that the timing of the protest was unfortunate, he nevertheless insisted that people had travelled from around the country to be part of it and that it should go ahead, according to the New York Post.

Quentin TarantinoTarantino's films should be boycotted, according to a police representation group

“I'm a human being with a conscience,” the notorious filmmaker said, “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.”

Tarantino’s words angered Patrick Lynch, the president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, who reacted to the director’s words on Sunday in a statement.

More: Quentin Tarantino prefers VHS tapes and DVDs to Netflix

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

“New Yorkers need to send a message to this purveyor of degeneracy that he has no business coming to our city to peddle his slanderous ‘Cop Fiction’. It’s time for a boycott of Quentin Tarantino’s films.”

The protest had been organised to highlight excessive, and sometimes fatal, violence used by police across the country and demand justice for those killed by officers.

Relatives of the deceased policeman Randolph Holder, 33, who was killed in East Harlem on Tuesday, were also incensed by the protest, which went ahead despite the tragedy. “I think it’s very disrespectful,” his cousin Shauntel Abrams said. “Everyone forgets that behind the uniform is a person.”

More: We’re shivering with excitement for Quentin Tarantino’s winter western ‘The Hateful Eight’!

Watch the trailer for The Hateful Eight here