''Peace Officer'' is a 2015 American

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

about

police militarization The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. It won the 2015 Documentary Feature Competition Grand Jury award at the

South by Southwest Film Festival South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, T ...

. It was conceived when co-director Scott Christopherson, an assistant film professor at

St. Edward's University St. Edward's University is a private, Catholic university in Austin, Texas. It was founded and is operated in the Holy Cross tradition. History Founding and early history St. Edward's University was founded by the Reverend Edward Sorin, CSC ...

in Austin, Texas, met retired police officer William "Dub" Lawrence at a baseball game and was invited to visit his hangar where he carried out his private investigations into incidents in which people were killed by police. Lawrence, the central figure in the documentary, founded

Davis County, Utah Davis County is a county in northern Utah, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 306,479, making it Utah's third-most populous county. Its county seat is Farmington, and its largest city is Layton. Davis County ...

SWAT In the United States, a SWAT team (special weapons and tactics, originally special weapons assault team) is a police tactical unit that uses specialized or military equipment and tactics. Although they were first created in the 1960s to ...

team, the first in the state, in the 1970s as a sheriff. He was motivated to begin investigating police killings after the same SWAT team he founded killed his son-in-law, Brian Wood, during a 2008 standoff. Much of the film focuses on the history of the SWAT teams that were formed in the United States after the 1965 Watts riots in Los Angeles and mythologized in popular culture by shows such as ''

S.W.A.T. In the United States, a SWAT team (special weapons and tactics, originally special weapons assault team) is a police tactical unit that uses specialized or military equipment and tactics. Although they were first created in the 1960s to ...

'' The film follows Lawrence as he investigates his son-in-law's death as well as several other SWAT team raids. The film won the 2015

AML Award The AML Awards are given annually by the Association for Mormon Letters (AML) to the best work "by, for, and about Mormons." They are juried awards, chosen by a panel of judges. Citations for many of the awards can be found on the AML website. T ...

for film.

References

External links

* * * * 2015 documentary films American documentary films Documentary films about law enforcement in the United States 2010s English-language films 2010s American films {{2010s-documentary-film-stub