Kern County Sheriff’s Department

One of the organizations that organize and sponsor these trainings is the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF). The AIEF is a 501(c)(3) organization affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). AIPAC is a lobbying group that advocates pro-Israel policies to the Congress and Executive Branch of the United States. AIEF is AIPAC’s charitable arm and makes grants to AIPAC as well as funds trips to Israel for politically influential Americans, including U.S. Congress members, for meetings with the Israeli political and military elite. In 2017 alone, AIEF sponsored 147 congressional trips to Israel and spent $2.16 million, more than any other interest group sponsoring congressional travel.

The Sheriff’s Department of Kern County, California, is among the departments that have sent delegates to Israel. Donny Youngblood has served as Sheriff of Kern County since 2006. Sheriff Youngblood attended a training in Israel through AIPAC as a delegate of the AIEF in 2011.

Kern County holds two of the deadliest police departments in America: the Kern County Sheriffs Department and Bakersfield Police Department. After the Guardian published a five-part investigation revealing that police in Kern County, California. have killed more people per capita than in any other American county in 2015, the ACLU issued a report on the county’s patterns and practices of excessive force.

“Our findings show that both KCSO and BPD have engaged in patterns and practices that violate civil rights KCSO and BPD officers have engaged in patterns of excessive force “ including shooting and beating to death unarmed individuals and deploying canines to attack and injure “ as well as a practice of filing intimidating or retaliatory criminal charges against individuals they subject to excessive force.” ~ ACLU lawyers’ letter to the state attorney general

Following the media reports and pressure from individuals and organizations, the state of California opened an ongoing civil rights investigation into both departments.

Donny Younblood was heavily criticized when a video recording of an interview he gave in 2006 revealed him saying it’s ‘better financially’ to kill suspects than to ‘cripple’ them.

In addition, the ACLU reported that he violated the TRUST Act with his call for anti-sanctuary policies.

In addition to Sheriff Donny Youngblood’s training in Israel, officers Sgt. Lostaunau, Sgt. Richard Terry, Scott Burnett, and Ian Silva, among others, attended a law enforcement training by Holston International Training and Consulting on Suicide Terror Attack Response Training, whose training director traveled to Israel for a training in 2006 and 2008 and imported the lessons learned from his training to apply to to this program.