Do Not Resist

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PBS Premiere: Feb. 12, 2018Check the broadcast schedule »

Film Update

In February 2018, POV asked Do Not Resist filmmaker Craig Atkinson what's happened since the cameras stopped rolling.

What inspired this film?
In April 2013, I watched the police response in the days following the Boston Marathon bombing in awe. I had never associated the vehicles, weapons and tactics used by officers after the attack with domestic police work. I grew up with the War on Drugs era of policing: My father was an officer for 29 years in a city bordering Detroit and became a member of SWAT when his city formed a team in 1989. What I wasn't familiar with was the effect the War on Terror had on police work. Making this film was an attempt to understand what had changed.

In the process of making the film and going through footage, was there anything that surprised you about policing?
I think the thing that most surprised me about current-day policing was the discrepancy between the threats that police were emphasizing in training and the bulk of their day-to-day police work. We continued to hear that the heavy equipment and military style tactical training was needed in the case of a terrorist threat. I think most Americans would understand the need for police officers to be armed and prepared for those situations, however the daily application of the equipment and training was instead applied to serving search warrants. The bulk of these search warrants were for what would be considered low-level drug offenses. Currently in St. Louis County, every felony search warrant is served by their full-time SWAT team. I was surprised to see SWAT integrated with day-to-day police work rather than reserved for terrorist attacks or for the most high-risk search warrants.

Is retired army lieutenant colonel Dave Grossman still lecturing "righteous violence" and encouraging police officers to be "men and women of violence?"
Dave Grossman continues to teach his philosophy of righteous violence to law enforcement officers hundreds of days a year. Some communities have pressured their local police departments to not use taxpayer money to higher Grossman, but he continues to be sought after in many law enforcement circles. I will say, however, that as we shared the film throughout the country, many in law enforcement denounced Grossman's training. When we showed the film at the John Jay Criminal Justice College in New York to a room full of active duty NYPD, a retired SWAT captain who was still involved with training the department got up after the screening and said that Grossman's approach is misguided and outdated and no longer used by the NYPD.

What are some new developments in police enforcement since the taping of this film?
In 2015 and 2016, many states were voting to stop abusive asset forfeiture policies, which allowed law enforcement to directly benefit from the money that they take from citizens. Many states were returning to a policy which required speeding ticket money to go in to a general purpose fund for the city. The states were also requiring a criminal conviction before property seizure. This seems like a no-brainer, but shockingly, the civil asset forfeiture laws allow law enforcement to take your property with only the mere suspicion of illegal activity.

And despite some states' efforts, Attorney General Jeff Sessions reinstated the federal adoption program, allowing police departments themselves to keep 80 percent of the seized money and property, while the other 20 percent goes to the federal government. In essence, we've given the police departments the tools of war, and then created a financial incentive for them to go out and use those tools. What did we think was going to happen?

Do you expect to see any changes towards demilitarization of police forces across the U.S. in the near future?
I'm not sure that the goal is to demilitarize. It would be very difficult to get law enforcement to return armored vehicles and other protective equipment with the violence that we face in the world today. Law enforcement should be prepared and armed when they are called upon to be heroes, but they shouldn't turn around and use that same equipment for an assault on the home of a 22-year-old college kid with less than one joint of marijuana in his backpack, like we see in Do Not Resist. Every time there is a terrorist event law enforcement officials use it do demonstrate the need for the military equipment, while not being honest about the fact that the over 60,000 SWAT deployments a year have nothing to do with terrorism. About 80 percent of SWAT deployments are used to conduct search warrants, and over 90 percent of those search warrants are for drugs. When you start to look at what is obtained by police during these search warrant, you find that the majority of the raids do not obtain drugs or cash over $1,000. So we're not using the tools of war on violent cartel leaders, but rather on simple drug users. I can't begin to express the level of damage that this has caused in the relationships between communities and those who were sworn in to protect them.

How has the film been received by police officers in the U.S.?
One of the greatest things to come from Do Not Resist is the fact that many in law enforcement have embraced the film as a teaching tool. There are many police officers who are working to reform their departments and have said that the film focuses on the areas of police reform that are most urgent. After the film was released theatrically we embarked on a police department and academy screening tour, and we were able to screen the film in front of thousands of police officers. It's been rewarding to be able to bring the film to those who need to see it the most and have the power to implement the needed change.

What do you hope American audiences will take away from the film?
I hope that people pick up on the top down influence that is exerted on local police departments. I met many young officers that got involved with police work because they truly wanted to protect and serve. However, the officers soon realize that the policies that they were expected to follow from their command staff and the federal government put them in direct opposition with their community. Asset forfeiture is a good example of this. When your police department is raising a significant portion of their operating budget from ticketing citizens, like they do in the St. Louis area, police become the de facto tax collectors pulling valuable time away from solving crimes like rape and murder. We need to hold individual officers accountable, but we also need to create policies that do not set up quality officers to fail.

What are you working on now?
I'm currently working on two new films, which I can't talk about now, but look forward to sharing with audiences in the near future.