LAPD sent officers to train in Israel, can’t explain what they learned

Over the past decade, the Los Angeles Police Department has sent its employees to Israel at least nine times to train or be trained by the country’s counterterrorism experts.

But officers who attended these training sessions and dozens of overseas seminars and conferences routinely failed to document what they learned or keep track of who they met with.

These are among the findings of a new report by the Police Commission Inspector General; This report revealed that the ministry did not have a system to track employees training with law enforcement agencies from around the world.

The LAPD’s relationship with Israeli security forces has come under scrutiny during the country’s ongoing military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, which has left tens of thousands dead and led to allegations of genocide.

In addition to their visits to Israel, LAPD officers traveled to Italy and France in preparation for hosting the Olympics and visited countries around the world, from Mexico to Thailand, for various meetings to discuss investigative techniques and police tactics.

The inspector general’s report examined 117 “foreign training activities” in which 243 LAPD employees participated since 2014, trying to determine how and why they benefited the department. LAPD officials said the department did not “develop any tactics, modified policies or training programs” based on foreign trips, but the report’s authors said the lack of records made it impossible to verify that claim.

Department officials need permission to travel on department-related business, but the report found that a lack of proper record keeping meant researchers “failed to evaluate important implications and potential benefits.”

The report said that in many cases participants only provided “brief” accounts of their trips, but otherwise “failed to document or commemorate key takeaways, practical applications, or potential benefits to the Department.”

The LAPD has been sending officers to train with Israeli law enforcement since the 1980s and increased the trips after the Sept. 11 attacks, citing a shared goal of combating extremism, officials said. Since 2014, 18 LAPD officers have made trips to Israel costing a total of $87,000, according to the inspector general’s report.

The department sent an unnamed deputy chief and seven other employees to Israel for an event called “Counterterrorism Command and Control” under a federal grant that covered the $52,470 price tag for the trip. But police officials said they had no information about what the trip accomplished or how it benefited the department, beyond stating that the training was aimed at supporting “executive development.”

At Tuesday’s Police Commission meeting, LAPD officials acknowledged that the department needs to do a better job of tracking its employees’ foreign travel and said they are beginning to create a better tracking system. Many travel records prior to 2021 have been deleted in accordance with the ministry’s data retention rules, officials said.

Nearly a quarter of the trips documented in the inspector general’s report were to Canada, where LAPD personnel traveled to Canada to learn best practices in investigating human trafficking and clandestine drug laboratories.

LAPD officers also trained in crowd control tactics with the Royal Thai Police and authorities in Austria and attended police aviation conventions in Colombia, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Germany and Poland. In addition, officials were sent to Singapore, France and England to give instructions under the leadership of Interpol regarding the investigation of crimes against children.

The report found that nearly 80 percent of foreign trips were financed by external funds such as police trusts and donations. In cases where someone else footed the bill, the inspector general’s office found that there were even fewer detailed records because there was no expectation for LAPD personnel to justify their travel in those situations.

Although donations to cover travel expenses are not required to be disclosed under state and federal law, the report said “the potential risks and perception of conflicts of interest associated with such funds outweigh the benefits of maintaining the anonymity of funding sources.”

The report also said the department “lacks any process to adequately assess and identify potential security risks in host countries,” noting that foreign contacts with U.S. national security agencies are not reviewed to ensure they are not members of an intelligence service or extremist groups.

The inspector general’s office said the LAPD must at least keep track of the location, category and topics covered at each training event. Ideally, the department would require participants to complete an evaluation report detailing lessons learned and “practical applications for Department operations,” the report said.

The inspector general’s office cited The Times’ reporting about the department’s decision to allow five members of the United Arab Emirates Department of Internal Affairs to train at the LAPD Police Academy in the summer of 2023. Some have questioned the appropriateness of the LAPD’s relationship with the security services of the Persian Gulf nation and other countries accused of human rights abuses.

Amr Shabaik, legal director of the greater Los Angeles chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said he hoped authorities would re-examine the matter once more information becomes available. His group and others sent a letter to the Police Commission noting the perception of bias created by sending personnel to Israel to train and train.

“What are they learning, what are they bringing home? All of this is undocumented and alarming,” Shabaik said. “There are also concerns about the private funding of these trips, which could clearly lead to conflicts of interest.”

LAPD officials have said in the past that cultural exchanges help foster better understanding between agencies at a time when major cities are increasingly grappling with international organized crime and terrorist threats.

The inspector general’s report said the lack of detailed records made it nearly impossible to evaluate the value of the department’s tours “to determine whether the tactics, strategies, or procedures introduced through these trainings were consistently aligned with existing policies.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.