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When asked to make a film for her documentary film class, Kaitlyn Traurig ’16 headed two hours south to Lee County to scout out some possibilities.

Having grown up in Fort Myers, she was familiar with the area and with her mom’s stories about the law enforcement officers she worked with in the county’s legal system. It was Spring 2015, just fresh off the Ferguson, MO, protests following the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by a police officer.

“With everything going on in the media, seeing how people in the community were reacting, I wanted to give insight to what the deputies are feeling,” said Traurig, a film major with a minor in communication. “I felt this was a great way to see the other side.”

In about 8 minutes, Traurig’s film Proud to Serve is a conversation with Deputy Michael Zazwirsky during a one-night ride along in his police car with her cinematographer, Mary McCune ’15. He talks about how he got into law enforcement, the challenges it places on his family and the devotion he sees in the police community.

“99.9 percent of the contacts we have with the public end good. It could be someone shaking a hand saying hi to taking a burglary report to … changing somebody’s tire,” Zazwirsky said in the film. “I’ve never met a cop that I work with, in my circle, that has ever done something willful to hurt somebody.”

Zazwirsky, who was named Lee County Sheriff’s Office Law Enforcement Officer of the Year in 2015, talks about the stresses of the job but how they are trained to serve and protect.

“Law enforcement is very unique in that we have to be prepared to do violence quickly,” said Zazwirsky “We train to chase people. We train to shoot people. We train to take people down. But we don’t train to take good people down. We train to take bad people down.”

After prodding from her professor, Aaron Walker, and from positive feedback she was receiving from classmates who had seen her film shown as an example in other classes, Traurig decided to submit Proud to Serve for screening at the Fort Myers Film Festival.

During a pre-screening in February, Traurig had to defend her film against a panel of judges, some who thought it wasn’t balanced enough. However, audience feedback and the majority of judges on the panel voted to screen it. It showed this weekend in Fort Myers.

The documentary can be viewed on Vimeo.

When Traurig graduates in May, she plans to move to New York and work in film editing. She has submitted Proud to Serve at other festivals as well, and she won Best Documentary at UT's Moon Dance Film Festival on April 8.