israeli police training for US local cops

 

"The Israelification of America’s security apparatus, recently unleashed in full force against the Occupy Wall Street Movement, has taken place at every level of law enforcement, and in areas that have yet to be exposed. The phenomenon has been documented in bits and pieces, through occasional news reports that typically highlight Israel’s national security prowess without examining the problematic nature of working with a country accused of grave human rights abuses. But it has never been the subject of a national discussion. And collaboration between American and Israeli cops is just the tip of the iceberg.

Having been schooled in Israeli tactics perfected during a 63 year experience of controlling, dispossessing, and occupying an indigenous population, local police forces have adapted them to monitor Muslim and immigrant neighborhoods in US cities. Meanwhile, former Israeli military officers have been hired to spearhead security operations at American airports and suburban shopping malls, leading to a wave of disturbing incidents of racial profiling, intimidation, and FBI interrogations of innocent, unsuspecting people. The New York Police Department’s disclosure that it deployed “counter-terror” measures against Occupy protesters encamped in downtown Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park is just the latest example of the so-called War on Terror creeping into every day life. Revelations like these have raised serious questions about the extent to which Israeli-inspired tactics are being used to suppress the Occupy movement."  Max Blumenthal

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I have many times seen Israeli police and troops engaged against Palestinian civilians.  Maximum threat of violence, intimidation, use of rubber bullets that can kill, dogs, the readiness to use "ball" ammunition if necessary; these are all standard Israeli methods for dealing with an occupied people.  These are the same methods that were used by St. Louis County police in response to street demonstrations.  I find the crowds at Ferguson to be aesthetically unappealing but I insist that they should not be treated as though they are the "enemy" in a country occupied by the over-militarized police.  I understand that Michael Chertoff when he was Secretary of Homeland Security played a major role in setting up these mentoring relations with Israel.  At the same time DoD has been encouraged to dispose of surplus equipment by giving it to local cops.  What a convenient way to get this gear "off the books!"  The vehicles in particular are appropriate to a COIN campaign.  That is once again a discredited doctrine, and so DoD wants to get rid of it so that it can ask Congress for different equipment.

Some years ago I was on a state grand jury here in which a local cop testified.   I asked him why he wore a badge on his shirt that was clearly modeled on the regimental crest of the 1st Special Forces Regiment.  He said that he was a member of the Alexandria police SWAT team.  I asked him if he was prepared and ready to kill people in line of duty as a normal method of operations.  He said no.  I told him that if that was the case he should not wear our badge and that he should not think of himself in that way. pl 

http://exiledonline.com/max-blumenthal-how-israeli-occupation-forces-bahraini-monarchy-guards-trained-u-s-police-for-coordinated-crackdown-on-occupy-protests/

Comments

[Kunuri]

I wonder something, if a cop just shoots an unarmed peaceful citizen, who is unknown to him, a clear case of murder. What happens if it turns out that the citizen killed has just murdered three people, unknown to the policeman at the moment of the incident? Is it still not murder? How relevant it is what Micheal Brown did prior to the incident? And shame on the Ferguson Police Chief, who is trying to squeeze in labels, phrases, and misinformation into the dialog to muddy the waters.

[confusedponderer]

Who'd have thought that. You hurt somebody and he gets angry at you? Phew.

What's wrong with these protesters at Ferguson?

[Fred]

Tyler,

"...and the old heads on the force not telling them no."

Yes, the first problem is a lack of leadership from the top down.

[Babak Makkinejad]

All:

If Israeli are teaching Americans police work; who would be the "Arabs" in US?

[Aono]

Babak:

Most Americans would have immediately thought "black folk" not too long ago. Today, a growing number would answer "the poor." The public is realizing that all it really takes to be the recipient of a "special," "tactical" police action (traditionally thought to be reserved for black communities), is to be poor.

Radley Balko's "Rise of the Warrior Cop" contributed to this realization, particularly among journalists that go out and cover events like Ferguson that are morbidly remarkable in their unremarkableness - until social media runs away with one.

It's also an issue on which progressives and libertarians are slowly-but-surely realizing that they functionally agree. The present political context for this broad civil rights resurgence is the accelerating implosion of the drug war, itself a lash on the poor. American self-correction.

[Lesly]

IMO brown people and "the poors" (brown or white). Citizens critical of the U.S.'s relationship with Israel are still a vocal minority compared to other social justice movements. It is "safe" to ignore them for now. On the other hand, we insist we are a meritocratic society and seem unable or unwilling to assist the have-nots as wealth concentrates at the top.

More on the Ferguson PD: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/15/the-day-ferguson-cops-were-caught-in-a-bloody-lie.html

Indisputable evidence of what transpired in the cell might have been provided by a surveillance camera, but it turned out that the VHS video was recorded at 32 times normal speed.

“It was like a blur,” Schottel told The Daily Beast on Wednesday. “You couldn’t see anything.”

The blur proved to be from 12 hours after the incident anyway. The cops had saved the wrong footage after Schottel asked them to preserve it.

Schottel got another unpleasant surprise when he sought the use-of-force history of the officers involved. He learned that before a new chief took over in 2010 the department had a surprising protocol for non-fatal use-of-force reports.

“The officer himself could complete it and give it to the supervisor for his approval,” the prior chief, Thomas Moonier, testified in a deposition. “I would read it. It would be placed in my out basket, and my secretary would probably take it and put it with the case file.”

No copy was made for the officer’s personnel file.

“Everything involved in an incident would generally be with the police report,” Moonier said. “I don’t know what they maintain in personnel files.”

[Charles Dekle]

Cee,
Thank you for the article.
Regards,

[Stephanie]

Kunuri, yes indeed, it may still be murder, but the fact that Brown and his friend were just leaving the scene of a crime may have affected Brown's response to the cop, which would (possibly) explain why an encounter ostensibly over jaywalking got dangerous so fast. Obviously this development is poentially helpful to Officer Wilson, legally and in the court of public opinion. It also puts a lid the portrayal of Brown as an anti-violence college-bound choirboy, and also damages the credibility of the friend who was accompanying Brown at the time of the shooting who somehow neglected to mention that they were returning home from a robbery. There is now the line of defense,already aired by the Ferguson police, that Wilson twigged to Brown as a suspect while the confrontation was in progress.

This is not to say that it was smart to release the video at this particular moment, to say the least. There should have been consultation among the authorities, which there wasn't. Plenty of time in future to reveal the video, at a place and time that might have been even more helpful to the officer's defense. Boneheaded move, apparently characteristic of a chief sadly out of his depth.

I hope it goes without saying that summary execution - if that is what it was - is not condign punishment for petty thievery.

[Tyler]

The US DoJ didnt want the video of violent thug Michael Brown acting like a violent thug because it depth charged the media narrative of him being a saint like John Coffey figure.

http://www.unz.com/isteve/should-eric-holder-be-indicted-for-ferguson-cover-up/

Who would have thought the AG who led an armed takeover of Columbia's ROTC building based off of ginned up racial greivances would still be obsessed with ginning up racial greivances after all these years?

[Fred]

Aono,

Most Americans would have thought that? How'd you come to that conclusion?

[William R. Cumming]

Are any units of the National Guard or federal, state, and local police drug tested?

Are any of the above currently trained for control of riots and civil disorders?

FEMA has no role in preventing or controlling riots and civil disorders.

The last nationalization of the National Guard under Title 10 of the US Code for riots and civil disorders was in 1992.

The LA riots in summer 1992 were a declared Presidential disaster for FIRES not riots or civil disorders.

In fact NO PRESIDENTIAL DISASTER OR EMERGENCY DECLARATION HAS EVER OCCURRED FOR RIOTS AND CIVIL DISORDERS.

The DoJ has opposed disaster and emergency Pr3esidential declarations for riots and civil disorders on the basis that to do so would give an incentive to further rioting and civil disorder.

[William R. Cumming]

DHS is largely an organization with the majority of its employees carrying guns and or badges and or wearing uniforms!

The DHS role in riots and civil disorders is an UNKNOWN.

In 2003 upon the establishment of DHS I wrote to the then AG John Ashcroft asking for him to analyze the legal authority of various departments and agencies in policy formulation and prevention and response to riots and civil disorders. NO ANSWER RECEIVED.

The vast majority of official travel to Israel by DHS officials and employees was paid for or reimbursed by Israel.

[William R. Cumming]

An historical footnote from an Extract from a recently published book review of mine under name of the Vacation Lane group!:

Patrick S. Roberts: Disasters and the American State: How Politicians, Bureaucrats, and the Public Prepare for the Unexpected (2013)

This excellent book still has some gaps and perhaps a key one discussed below:

Executive Order 12656 issued November 1988 replaced the 1969 Executive Order 11490! Neither Order made FEMA or its predecessors the "Nation's Emergency Czar"! Nor did any of the drafts of E.O. 12656 which while amended is still in effect!

The Department of Justice oddly perhaps feared that FEMA would become the successor to LEAA [Law Enforcement Assistance Administration]! Those fears heightened after the 1984 Summer Olympics where FEMA helped fund and arrange security for the GAMES.

DoJ added language in the 1984 Omnibus Crime Control legislation enacted that year creating something called a LAW ENFORCEMENT EMERGENCY [see 28 CFR Part 65] and using that authority to define the LAW Enforcemnt Community.

DoJ's worst fears have now materialized with the creation of DHS in 2002 which is largely a LAW ENFORCEMENT Department with a majority of its employees wearing guns, badges,and/or uniforms.

IMO NO FUNDING FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ACTIVITIES is authorized under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act [P.L. 100-707] that both supplemented and revised the Disaster Relief Act of 1974 [P.L. 93-288]!
Overall this book a wonderful contribution to the literature on disasters. The simplest reform that could be made to the pyramid of federal disaster relief programs, functions, and activities erected since since the enactment of Public Law 875 of the 81at Congress is to make all federal disaster programs, functions and activities block grants whether housed in FEMA and DHS or elsewhere in the Executive Branch. "FREE" federal disaster relief is increasing the vulnerability and increasing the risk from many types of disasters.

It is reputed that Secretaries of DHS Chertoff and Napitanlano have stated off the record that over 50% of their total management time while running DHS was spent on disaster issues [and FEMA?]!
Why

[Fred]

WRC,

The training standards of state and local police are set by the respective state not the Federal government. In regards to Ferguson, MO the population is less than 30,000. Just what training budget do you expect them to have for a 50 person department?

[HDL]

Speaking of militarization of local law enforcement and the equipment being provided at little or no cost by the Feds. According to NYT, here is where it is, county by county.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/08/15/us/surplus-military-equipment-map.html?_r=1

[William R. Cumming]

Fred! Perhaps another reason the states are foolish to have allowed the creation of over 90,000 units of local government.

[Barry]

"However, I don't know why anyone would want to be a police officer nowadays. Do your job, defend your life from a 300 pound strong arm robber, and next thing you know High Commissar Eric Holder is sic'ing the DoJ on you for violating someone's civil rights. "

How many cases like that exist, when police make god-only-knows how many thousands of arrests each day?

Offhand, I'd rank that chance as well below getting crippled for life in a car accident.

[Barry]

That's the great thing about the USA - everybody gets a chance to play 'Arab'!

[Fred]

WRC,

on the East Coast most of the locat units of government came about before the states were states. Municiple incorparotation inside a state boundary is certainly not a federal issue requiring the oversight of some people in D.C.; they do a bad enough job overseeing the district.

[Mark Price]

Nancy, I would not be too quick to brag about voting for Obama .... TWICE. And of course you wish he had more allegiance to Palestine. In true liberal Dem fashion, you twist truth to suit you position. Israel has never had a more dangerous time in being friends with America. There is no love fest with Israel. But then, what do you expect when a leftist agitator seizes power in the free world?

[Cee]

Aono,

No longer. Anyone who speaks up about injustice will be reminded

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2725548/Howard-University-grad-shot-head-pastor-mediator-blasted-rubber-bullet-Ferguson-demonstrators-reveal-horrors-lethal-force.html

[Cee]

This is going to tick some people off. They can join me. The IDF tactics come home.

A Church was raided in Ferguson

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/20/church-police-ferguson_n_5695732.html

The following was about the siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in 2002.

Michel Sabbah, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem and the head of the Roman Catholic Church in the region, said the gunmen had been given sanctuary, and that "the basilica is a place of refuge for everybody, even fighters, as long as they lay down their arms. We have an obligation to give refuge to Palestinians and Israelis alike"