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Following the screening, Alec Baldwin will host a conversation with writers-directors Brad Barber and Scott Christopherson
A film by Scott Christopherson and Brad Barber
Dub Lawrence is a man obsessed. As a young rookie cop, he used his savvy investigation skills to help break the Ted Bundy case. His obsession with turning around the systemic failings he saw as a young police officer led to a successful bid to become Sheriff of Davis County, Utah at a young age in 1974. Committed to the highest standards of peace officers serving the public good, he once wrote himself a parking ticket when a citizen called him out for his patrol car's violation.
After years in public service, today Dub works in semi-retirement as a private investigator, with projects fueled mostly by income from his water and sewage pump repair service. When he's not wading through raw sewage, his remaining free time is spent investigating the shooting death of his son-in-law Brian Wood.
Dub puts himself in Brian’s shoes as he describes the felonies, mistakes, and problems created by the multiple SWAT teams involved in the arrest of one desperate man in his parked truck threatening no one but himself. Now forced to stand by and watch as a regular citizen, Dub also laments what the SWAT team he founded with noble ambitions 30 years earlier has become.
In Peace Officer, Dub’s long-term obsession with bringing to light the truth behind his son-in-law's killing is punctuated by his investigation of other recent officer-involved shootings and SWAT team raids in quiet neighborhoods just miles from where Brian was killed. Several of these cases are related to aggressive no-knock search warrant laws typical across the country.
These events are contextualized within a growing national phenomenon of violent SWAT raids and governmental immunity laws gone amok in the War on Drugs. Officers both in cities and small towns like Dub's are routinely armed with military surplus weapons and equipment, and federal incentives to use what they are given. All of this has lead to a 15,000% increase in SWAT team raids in the United States since the late 1970's. Peace Officer follows Dub as he obsessively picks apart these cases from his unique perspective that combines the zeal of a rule-of-law detective with the grief of a victim.
The John Drew Theater in the Dina Merrill Pavilion at Guild Hall, 158 Main Street, East Hampton, New York 11937, 631.324.0806; Tickets online at GuildHall.org or at Box Office; theatermania.com; or 1.866.811.4111
Free Saunders Student Rush tickets available
