Under fire from law enforcement groups across the country, director Quentin Tarantino said Tuesday that his remarks condemning police brutality have been misrepresented to "demonize" him and deflect attention away from the issue, reports the Los Angeles Times .

"All cops are not murderers," Tarantino told The Times in his first public response to the controversy. "I never said that. I never even implied that."

Tarantino's interview with The Times comes after law enforcement groups in New York, Los Angeles, Orange County, New Jersey, Chicago and Philadelphia, among others, began calling for a public boycott of the filmmaker's upcoming movie, "The Hateful Eight."

Tarantino, though, says he is standing by what he said.

"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."

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