Georgia Institute of Technology Police Department

Atlanta, Georgia

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In 2002, just months after 9/11, American police officers held their first official training expedition to Israel to learn about “counter-terrorism.” Since then, hundreds of law enforcement officials and government agents from across the country have been sent to Israel to meet with military and police forces, and thousands more have participated in conferences, trainings, and workshops with Israeli officials in the United States.

The American and Israeli governments justify these exchanges on the grounds that the United States and Israel share the mission of the War on Terror. American facilitators and participants of these programs similarly argue that the United States and Israel are allied democracies whose law enforcement agencies play a crucial role in preserving national security.

While framed as an opportunity for US law enforcement to learn policing strategies from a closely aligned democracy with counter-terror experience, in fact these are trainings with an occupying force that rules a population deprived of human and civil rights. Rather than promoting security for all, these programs facilitate an exchange of methods of state violence and control, including mass surveillance, racial profiling, and suppression of protest and dissent.

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One of the organizations that organize and sponsor these joint trainings is the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE), a joint program of Georgia State University and local law enforcement. GILEE works to foster cooperation between law enforcement agencies in Georgia and Israel, educating Israeli law enforcement on community policing and training Georgia law enforcement on counter-terrorism. Since its establishment, GILEE has run law enforcement executive development and trainings to enhance homeland security, through 450 programs that reached over 33,000 law enforcement and other executives across over 25 states and 25 countries.

The Police Department of the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) in Atlanta, Georgia, is among the departments that have sent delegates to Israel. Teresa Crocker served as Chief and Director of Security of the Georgia Tech Police Department between 2002 and 2015. Chief Crocker attended a GILEE training in Israel in 2008.

According to an interview by Georgia Tech’s The Technique campus newspaper, the Chief hoped that the techniques she learned in Israel “will be readily applicable to policing here at Tech.”

“We made a lot of contacts that we know are just a call away if we ever need them for anything.” – Chief Teresa Crocker
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