NJ Transit Police Department

One of the organizations that organize and sponsor these trainings is the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA). JINSA is a think tank that advocates for US-Israeli security cooperation, increased domestic military spending, and military aid to Israel, and has board members with close ties to US defense contractors. JINSA launched its Law Enforcement Exchange Program (LEEP) shortly after 9/11, and since 2002 has run annual trips to Israel for US federal, state, and local law enforcement. Over 11,000 additional American law enforcement officials have attended LEEP conferences nationwide, which bring in Israeli security officials as experts.

The Police Department of New Jersey Transit is among the departments that have sent delegates to Israel. Joseph C. Bober served as Chief of the New Jersey Transit Police Department, and attended a training in Israel with JINSA as a delegate of the LEEP program in 2006. Bober was ousted in a gender discrimination suit, and was later the center of a racial discrimination suit by nine African-American officers and one Latino officer serving under his leadership, which was ultimately settled.

On hearing the details of the racial discrimination, the counsel representing the officers remarked:

“I felt like I was going down to Georgia in 1960. Bober and his cohorts pretty much established the Ku Klux Klan in the NJ Transit Police Department.”