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Capitol Police officer ‘blown away’ by Israel trip

- Thursday, April 8, 2004 |

By Sarah Bouchard
April 7, 2004
The Hill – “The Newspaper for and About the U.S. Congress”
(view original article)

Although police officers often seem invincible, Capitol Police Cmdr. Larry Thompson is living proof that cops can be cowed. On a recent trip to Israel to study counterterrorism techniques, Thompson said, he was never really frightened, but he was always uneasy.

By Sarah Bouchard
April 7, 2004
The Hill – “The Newspaper for and About the U.S. Congress”
(view original article)

The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) – a Washington-based think tank focusing on defense and national-security issues – sent 14 U.S. law-enforcement officials on the five-day trip in late January at a cost of $5,000 per person.

Thompson said his group was always a bit on edge in a country that has become one of the world’s premier terrorist targets and has fallen victim to more than 100 suicide bombings over the past decade.

But the officials didn’t talk about their fears until they were leaving, Thompson said, adding that the group’s discomfort was revealed near the end of the trip when the group’s bus pulled alongside a car with a particularly menacing appearance.

“We were all kind of looking at the window and looking at the person who was occupying” the driver’s seat, said Thompson, commander of his department’s Uniformed Services Bureau.

“It was probably something in the back of our minds all the time,” Thompson added.

In Tel Aviv, Thompson said, his group had to make a last-minute change of plans when the Israeli police said the office complex to which they were headed was the target of a car bomb.

“They told us we wouldn’t be going there today,” he said. “That brought it home to us pretty dramatically that we were in an environment that was dangerous.”

Several days after the group visited Jerusalem, the Americans learned that a suicide bomber attacked a spot the group had toured.

Despite the threats of terrorism, Thompson said the trip was unforgettable.

As a Christian, Thompson said, he was most struck by the spiritual significance of the Jewish state.

“I was totally blown away,” he said.

Thompson added that he was also amazed by the capacity of law-enforcement officials to act without bias toward Arabs.

“What really got me and surprised me was the impartiality with which [Israeli law enforcement officials] carried out their jobs” in the face of “a clear group of individuals trying to disrupt their way of life,” he said.

Thompson described a married couple that spoke to the American officials about their life as police officers.

After being informed by her husband one day that a known suicide bomber was in Jerusalem, the woman boarded a bus to go to work.

“The suicide bomber gets on the bus and blows himself up,” Thompson said.

The woman survived that attack and still works as a police officer.

The couple were barraged with questions about how they keep going. Thompson said he was moved by this response: “This is our home, and we are not leaving.”

The purpose of the trip was to learn from the Israeli law enforcement officials, who are known experts in “training for and assessing counterterrorism,” said Marsha Halteman, the JINSA official who chiefly organized the visit.

The Israeli National Police, the Israel Security Agency and the Israel Defense Forces taught the U.S. delegation techniques for preventing and reacting to suicide bombers.

“We learned the importance of intelligence gathering,” Thompson said, and “how police officers on the street have to be constantly aware of their environment.”

One night, the American group accompanied the Israeli police on a patrol of Tel Aviv.

At several seminars, Israeli commanders of bomb-disposal and undercover units described to the U.S. cops all the different weapons that domestic terrorists in Israel employ – including guns, car bombs and cell phones fitted with explosives.

Thompson said he learned a lot about how to disrupt the intelligence gathering of those who “seek to do you harm.”

“That’s a clear part of the process before there’s an attack,” he said.

The Americans learned about the need to “reduce the targets of opportunity.”

Israeli experts also instructed the American delegation on how to secure large venues without disrupting the public’s enjoyment.

“The similarities with the way we do it here in the U.S. were surprising to me,” Thompson said.

Thompson already has begun passing on what he learned to fellow Capitol Police officers.

Capitol Police officers are learning how to relay information more effectively from the street to top-tier managers, and vice versa.

The trip to Israel is the second organized by JINSA – the first was in August 2002 – but Halteman said it is likely to become an annual event.

“These types of programs are enormously valuable,” said Steven Pomerantz, a former FBI assistant director and current member of JINSA’s board of advisers.

“Nothing can replicate American officials seeing these types of problems firsthand and the systems that are put in place to deal with them.”