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<span><a href="https://blackagendareport.com/author/Alice Speri">Alice Speri </a> -</span> 08 Feb 2023</div></div>
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<div class="gmail-field gmail-field--name-field-cover-image gmail-field--type-image gmail-field--label-hidden gmail-field--item"><a href="https://blackagendareport.com/sites/default/files/2023-02/cerelyn%20davis.jpg" title="Memphis Police Chief Trained with Israel Security Forces" class="gmail-colorbox gmail-cboxElement"><img src="https://blackagendareport.com/sites/default/files/2023-02/cerelyn%20davis.jpg" alt="Memphis Police Chief Trained with Israel Security Forces" class="gmail-img-responsive" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="397" height="265">
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<div class="gmail-field gmail-field--name-field-image-caption gmail-field--type-string gmail-field--label-hidden gmail-field--item"><font size="1">Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn "C.J." Davis (Photo: Gerald Herbert / AP)</font></div>
<div class="gmail-field gmail-field--name-body gmail-field--type-text-with-summary gmail-field--label-hidden gmail-field--item"><p><em>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.</em></p>
<p><em><strong>This article was originally published in <a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/02/02/memphis-police-israel/" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">The Intercept<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a>.</strong></em></p>
<p>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’ <a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/01/31/tyre-nichols-memphis-police/" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">bloated budgets<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a>.</p>
<p>Among the objections to policing that are being revived are criticisms of a controversial series of trainings and <a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/09/15/police-israel-cops-training-adl-human-rights-abuses-dc-washington/" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">exchange programs<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a> 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.</p>
<p>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 <a href="https://memphispolice.org/about/chief-message/" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">leadership training<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a> 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 <a href="https://www.durhamnc.gov/DocumentCenter/View/9799/Davis-Resume-Final-2016?bidId=" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">old résumé<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a>.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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 <a href="https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2018/04/durham-votes-for-nations-first-ban-on-police-exchanges-with-israel/" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">local activists<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a> and a <a href="https://deadlyexchange.org/" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">national campaign<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a> to end U.S.-Israel police exchanges.</p>
<p>In 2018, Durham became the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/4/19/durham-first-us-city-to-ban-police-training-with-israeli-military" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">first city<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Godwin, who is known for having introduced the <a href="https://www.memphisdailynews.com/news/2009/oct/5/police-director-larry-godwin/" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">Blue CRUSH<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a> 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 <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/01/20/political-surveillance-police-activists-tennessee/" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">reported<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a>, the Memphis Police Department has a long history of surveillance, particularly of Black activists.</p>
<p>“We’re going to try to incorporate some things here,” Godwin <a href="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" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">told reporters<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a> 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.”</p>
<p><a href="https://deadlyexchange.org/" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">Critics of the exchanges<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a> with Israeli security forces point out that the partnerships allow for a swap of “worst practices.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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 “<a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/10/15/alex-vitale-interview-the-end-of-policing/" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">The End of Policing<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a>,”
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.”</p>
<p><strong><em>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.</em></strong></p>
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