Presented with ACLU of Nebraska, this one-time screening will be followed by a post-film panel discussion.
Director Craig Atkinson’s father was a police officer in Detroit and SWAT team member until 2002. Atkinson, whose film DO NOT RESIST, interrogates the militarized tactics of contemporary law enforcement, is frequently asked in interviews what his father thinks about the film’s message — which points out some of the problematic consequences of military-grade weaponry and technology used for day-to-day policing.
Atkinson says, “Everyone wants to know what my father thinks of the film, and in all honesty, I think it pains him. It’s hard to watch the profession you dedicated your life to evolve into something completely unrecognizable. During the 13 years my father was on SWAT from 1989–2002, his team conducted 29 search warrants total. Compare that to today, when departments of a similar size we filmed conducted more than 200 a year.”
The film opens with footage of the protests in Ferguson, Missouri. The SWAT team deploys. People run from tear gas cannisters. The images are unsettling. These shots give way for Atkinson’s argument, which focuses on a larger shift in policing norms across the country, of which Ferguson is just one example.
Atkinson was aware that his project needed to be as broad as possible, to address what he sees as a widespread phenomena. “If we only filmed in the south, I didn’t want someone in the north to say ‘Well, we don’t police like that.’ I wanted to do something that would be nationally relevant, so we spanned out across the country and tried to get access to as many departments as we could,” he said in a recent interview.
Though the film is critical of the modern organization of law enforcement, it is by no means a critique of police officers themselves. Atkinson says, “I’m hoping that we don’t condemn the officers, but we condemn the style of policing we see in this film and we use it as a teaching tool because I think that will actually serve a greater good. Making a film that would’ve further pitted citizens against police obviously wouldn’t solve any issues and we need to bring this film to people who can actually change these things and reform these policies and the way we’re training officers to approach the community, which is the police themselves.”
Following the film will be a panel discussion with Leslie J. Seymore, past-president of the National Black Police Association, member of the Nebraska Crime Commission Racial Profiling Task Force, and current ACLU of Nebraska board member; Samuel Walker, Professor Emeritus, UNO, international law enforcement expert, and member of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing; JaKeen Fox, President of the Urban League of Nebraska’s Young Professionals; Teresa Négron, Director of Negrón Consulting, retired officer, and former spokesperson of the Omaha Police Department. The panel will be moderated by Senator Tanya Cook.
— Diana Martinez, Film Streams Education Director
