This week, Baltimore County Police Capt. Roman Zaryk stood on the spot in Tel Aviv where a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a disco in 2001, killing 21 partygoers. The Baltimore Sun says that Zaryk and a dozen other law enforcement officers representing police departments from Maryland to California are in Israel to learn about methods for preventing bombings, securing airports, and border crossings and performing mass rescue operations. The trip is sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League, a U.S.-based, Jewish advocacy group that has trained hundreds of law enforcement officials about domestic and international terror.
Unlike in the U.S., where racial and ethnic profiling is forbidden, Israeli airport officials explained how they use profiling to identify suspicious passengers, questioning them extensively, and performing searches if necessary. Dozens of undercover, armed security officers mill among the passengers. At a training site for Israel’s border patrol in the rocky hills of the West Bank, the American officials were given a live fire demonstration of Israeli techniques for storming buildings, killing suicide bombers in a crowded pedestrian mall and controlling checkpoints. Many of these training exercises have little application to the challenges faced by local and state police forces in the United States, where drug dealing, car thefts, and home burglaries may occupy much of their time.
Link: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.israelpolice28jun28,0,7317395.story?coll=bal-hom