‘DO NOT RESIST’
(Unrated), 1:22
It’s no secret that American police departments have turned into mini militias, armed with the most destructive toys taxpayer money can buy. Craig Atkinson’s documentary “Do Not Resist” examines the phenomenon through seemingly unrelated vignettes.
For instance, the film takes us to Ferguson, Missouri, where police in riot gear tear-gas a peaceful demonstration following the death of Michael Brown. It also takes us to community meetings, police training seminars and vast tracts of land filled with armored vehicles as far as the eye can see.
It would be hard to choose which scene is the most indelible, but a top contender is the one that shows a SWAT team in Richland County, South Carolina., swarming a house to execute a search warrant. They do as much damage to the windows as they can on the way in — that’s a “distractionary tactic,” one explains — and then handcuff everyone they find.
At another point, the camera takes us into a seminar with prolific law enforcement trainer Dave Grossman, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, who tells recruits, “Violence is your tool…. You are men and women of violence.” Grossman’s books are required reading for the FBI Academy and many police academies, the movie informs us.
A troubling portrait emerges. Even without the guidance of narration or a single story arc, it becomes clear that the war on terror has spawned another war — one between police officers trained to fight like soldiers and the people they’ve sworn to protect.