"The answer Atkinson came up with is “Do Not Resist,” a documentary film that traces the transformation of police departments across the United States into forces that often look like our Army and Marines—and all too often act like them. Watching “Do Not Resist,” which won the prize for best documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival last month, is an eye-opening experience. The film takes a series of events that might appear unrelated—the heavy-handed police response to the demonstrations in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014; the use of heavily armedswat teams in South Carolina to carry out routine drug arrests—and shows that they are part of a pattern that has taken hold in many police departments across the country. “What we discovered is that the there had been a massive change in the tactics used by swat teams,” Atkinson told me. “And that happened as the federal government was giving away military equipment to police departments.”
“Do Not Resist” and the Crisis of Police Militarization - The New Yorker
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