This article is the second in a six-part series about the drug war and police reform. Read Part 1 here.

OGDEN, Utah -- Former Sheriff William "Dub" Lawrence has watched with dismay as America's war on drugs has escalated, and SWAT teams have become more aggressive, more militarized, and less focused on resolving disputes peacefully.

In 1975, Lawrence started what would become the Davis County, Utah, SWAT team. The elite tactical units were coming into vogue across the country at the time, after they were introduced in Los Angeles in the 1960s, following the Watts riots and a number of mass shooting incidents.

Lawrence was choosy about who he put on the SWAT team. "You have to pick guys who have the right mentality, the right temperament, and who show good judgment," he says. "I finally found four guys I could trust, and we went about training them."

In September 2008, however, he watched helplessly as the same SWAT team he helped create over 30 years earlier shot and killed Brian Wood, his 36-year-old son-in-law.

Wood had a history of psychological problems, and he had barricaded himself in his truck with a gun following a domestic dispute. After a 12-hour standoff with police, the SWAT team moved in and shot Wood eight times with a stun gun before finally shooting him as he lay on the ground, an outcome Lawrence criticizes as an overreaction.

"I told my family, I said, 'These guys are well-trained. You can trust them to talk him down,'" Lawrence recalls. "I then had to explain to my daughter why this team I helped create -- had just told her to trust -- had just killed her husband."

Lawrence got his start in policing in 1971. He'd just served two years in the Marines, had recently married, and was attending Brigham Young University, when a neighbor -- who also happened to be the police chief in the town of Bountiful -- told him about an opening in his department and encouraged him to apply. Lawrence did, got the job, and switched his focus from business classes to justice administration.

Lawrence says his tenure as sheriff didn't win him many friends. In addition to the SWAT team, he established a paramedic unit within the police department, which didn't sit well with the fire department. Lawrence also disbanded the police department's anti-narcotics unit, which he says took up too many resources and placed too high a priority on drug enforcement.

He also made a number of high-profile arrests of public officials (including the superintendent of the highway patrol at the time, who was arrested on a DWI charge) and refused to let them off.

Lawrence says that his philosophy -- that the law applies equally to everyone -- is the reason he only served for one term. Ultimately, he says, he had made too many enemies, and he lost his bid for reelection in 1978.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/25/utah-police-reform_n_4150625.html?1382700580