Framingham Police Department

One of the organizations that sponsor these trainings is the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The ADL is a non-profit that works to combat anti-Semitism and advocate for Israel. In this context, the ADL runs a National Counter-Terrorism Seminar that has sent hundreds of top ranking officials to Israel to learn about combatting terror since 2003. That same year the ADL established an Advanced Training School that brings delegations of Israeli law enforcement to speak to American law enforcement officials, involving over 1,000 U.S. participants since the program began.

The Police Department of Framingham, Massachusetts, is among the departments that have sent delegates to Israel. Steven Carl served as Chief of Framingham Police Department between 2001 and 2013. Ken Ferguson has served as Chief of Framingham Police Department since 2013, and is due to remain Chief until June 2019. Chief Carl and Chief Ferguson attended a training in Israel with the ADL as delegates of the National Counter Terrorism Seminar, in 2011 and 2014, respectively. Chief Carl now serves as the police chief and director of campus safety at Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts since being appointed in 2013.

After a fatal shooting of an unarmed elderly man laying on the ground with an M4 submachine gun during a SWAT raid, Chief Carl was forced to disband the department’s SWAT team. The elderly man’s family filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit against the Framingham Police Department officer and the town, partially blaming the towns policy or custom of grossly inadequate training and supervision of its police officers.