[News] Memphis Police Chief Trained with Israel Security Forces

[Anti-Imperialist News]

 *Memphis Police Chief Trained with Israel Security Forces*
<https://blackagendareport.com/memphis-police-chief-trained-israel-security-forces>
Alice Speri  <https://blackagendareport.com/author/Alice Speri> -  08 Feb
2023
[image: Memphis Police Chief Trained with Israel Security Forces]
<https://blackagendareport.com/sites/default/files/2023-02/cerelyn%20davis.jpg>
Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn "C.J." Davis (Photo: Gerald Herbert / AP)

*The chief of the Memphis, Tennessee police department took part in
trainings in Israel. These exchanges with an apartheid state are a training
ground for brutality.*

*This article was originally published in The Intercept
<https://theintercept.com/2023/02/02/memphis-police-israel/>.*

The death of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols at the hands of Memphis police
officers last month once again ignited outrage over the violent,
militarized nature of U.S. law enforcement and placed scrutiny on police
departments’ bloated budgets
<https://theintercept.com/2023/01/31/tyre-nichols-memphis-police/>.

Among the objections to policing that are being revived are criticisms of a
controversial series of trainings and exchange programs
<https://theintercept.com/2017/09/15/police-israel-cops-training-adl-human-rights-abuses-dc-washington/>
for
U.S. police in Israel. Scores of American law enforcement leaders have
attended the programs, where they learned from Israeli police and security
forces known for systemically abusing the human rights of Palestinians.

Some of the Memphis Police Department’s top brass, including current Chief
Cerelyn Davis, participated in the programs. Davis, who previously helmed
the police department in Durham, North Carolina, completed a leadership
training <https://memphispolice.org/about/chief-message/> with the Israel
National Police in 2013. While an officer with the Atlanta Police
Department, Davis also established an international exchange program with
Israeli police and coordinated department leaders delegations to Israel,
according to an old résumé
<https://www.durhamnc.gov/DocumentCenter/View/9799/Davis-Resume-Final-2016?bidId=>
.

“We know, without a shadow of a doubt, that what takes place during
US-Israel police exchanges does nothing to keep our communities safe,” Eran
Efrati, director of campaigns and partnerships for the progressive group
Jewish Voice for Peace. “But the exchanges refine and enhance the
militarization rooted in American policing with Israeli tactics and
technology of occupation and apartheid that are being tested on
Palestinians on a daily basis.”

By the time she became chief in Durham, Davis seems to have changed her
tune on such programs. The apparent coolness on the police-Israeli
relationships came following pressure from local activists
<https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2018/04/durham-votes-for-nations-first-ban-on-police-exchanges-with-israel/>
and
a national campaign <https://deadlyexchange.org/> to end U.S.-Israel police
exchanges.

In 2018, Durham became the first city
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/4/19/durham-first-us-city-to-ban-police-training-with-israeli-military>
in
the U.S. to ban police trainings and exchanges involving Israel’s military.
At the time, Davis wrote in a memo that she had “no intention to
participate or initiate an exchange with Israel,” which prompted two
Israeli volunteer police officers to sue her and the Durham police
department for discrimination.

A spokesperson for the Memphis police department did not immediately
respond to a request to explain the chief’s changed position on the
exchanges with Israel.

Davis wasn’t the only top cop in Memphis to have participated in the
exchanges with Israel. One of her predecessors, Larry Godwin, also trained
there as part of a Homeland Security International Conference.

Godwin, who is known for having introduced the Blue CRUSH
<https://www.memphisdailynews.com/news/2009/oct/5/police-director-larry-godwin/>
predictive
policing technology to the city, spoke about wanting to adopt some of the
techniques he learned about in Israel in Memphis. As The Intercept
previously reported
<https://theintercept.com/2020/01/20/political-surveillance-police-activists-tennessee/>,
the Memphis Police Department has a long history of surveillance,
particularly of Black activists.

“We’re going to try to incorporate some things here,” Godwin told reporters
<https://web.archive.org/web/20150915130807/https:/www.aipac.org/learn/resources/aipac-publications/publication?pubpath=PolicyPolitics/AIPAC%20Periodicals/Homeland%20Security%20Monitor/2010/11/Homeland%20Security%20Monitor%20-%20November%202010>
at
the time. “We’re doing a lot of it, but there’s still some other things we
can do, technology-wise. I picked up some very good information.”

Critics of the exchanges <https://deadlyexchange.org/> with Israeli
security forces point out that the partnerships allow for a swap of “worst
practices.”

“During these trainings in Israel, U.S. and Israeli officials visit
checkpoints, prisons, airports — sites of well-documented human rights
abuses against Palestinians,” said Efrati, of Jewish Voice for Peace.
“Participants witness real-life examples of repressive violence, watching
the Israeli military repress protests in the occupied West Bank, and
joining Israeli police patrols in East Jerusalem and along the militarized
fence blockading Gaza.”

Training — whether in Israel or at home — has done little to address the
underlying problems of U.S. policing, or to prevent violent police killings
like that of Nichols.

“Most people who call for more training as a response to abusive policing
have little idea what that really involves,” Alex Vitale, a professor of
sociology and author of “The End of Policing
<https://theintercept.com/2017/10/15/alex-vitale-interview-the-end-of-policing/>,”
told The Intercept. “The kinds of training police are given in Israel is
actually part of the problem because it encourages a warrior mindset in
police and exposes them to practices that would be unconstitutional in the
U.S.”

*Alice Speri writes about U.S. foreign policy, abuses by military and
security forces, and the repression of dissent. She has reported from
Palestine, Haiti, El Salvador, Colombia, and across the United States. She
is originally from Italy and lives in the Bronx.*
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