Peace Officer is the story of Dub Lawrence. Presently a retired sheriff in a small town in Utah, Dub was elected in the 1970’s, at a time where SWAT teams were all the rage and local communities, following the example of Los Angeles, were allocating budget to train their men and provide them with gear. Thirty years later, the war on drugs and then the war on terror have created a climate of angst and violence. The very SWAT team that Dub helped found is called to a scene at Dub’s daughter’s house. After hours of negotiation, Dub’s son-in-law is killed, and Dub goes back to what he knows how to do: investigating and seeking fairness.
The documentary touches to the problem of the militarization of the police, an issue that was raised during the events of Ferguson last summer. Though it focuses solely on Utah, the situation is likely the same in other cities and states: the bill that lets the US Army donate used military gear to local state police comes with a provision mandating the use of said gear in the field within the first year. Violence has become a state of mind, ingrained in the culture of states and cities law enforcement agencies.
Dub is contacted by several other families whose house was stormed and, in each case, finds troubling evidence that not only are SWAT teams essentially seeking to execute their targets rather than serving a search warrant, but the forensics conducted at the crime scene do not actually line up with the recounting of the raid by the agents.
This might be pushing the envelope but what struck me is the similarity of Dub’s initiative with that of Edward Snowden. Their actions are radically different in terms of scope and impact. But at core, they do share a lot: one person working for the government, coming from a family of civil servants, in a position to serve their community and ultimately deciding to take a stance against what they perceive as an obvious violation of the rights of the people. One is fighting a state of massive surveillance while the other is fighting a state of pervasive violence.
In both cases, observing the reaction and justifications of the elected officials is key – how justice is served is another interesting aspect of both stories. The most striking quote for me comes from a high-ranking police official in Utah:
The police can be perfectly justified to to kill an innocent person
That about sums it all. Peace Officer won the documentary grand jury prize at SXSW.