Edmonton police (EPS) chief Warren Driechel\u2019s trip to Israel, in February, drew criticism even as some Edmontonians defended it.<\/p>\n
Driechel visited police agencies in Israel last month during a trip funded by the Major Cities Chiefs Association, an independent group of police executives from cities across the U.S. and Canada.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best we can understand how these things are happening in other countries around the world, again, that are really impacting our communities at home,\u201d Driechel said.<\/p>\n
The chief also called the trip a valuable opportunity to learn\u00a0how police in Israel were building connections with both Muslim and Jewish communities.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re close to 700 protests last year, and some of them are driven by not just what\u2019s occurring in the Middle East, but around the globe,\u201d Dreichel said.<\/p>\n
Dan Jones, a former Edmonton police officer and criminologist at Norquest College, said while learning to connect with different communities was important, he questioned the EPS chief\u2019s choice of Israel for those lessons.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would look at places like the United Kingdom and different places that are that are very well known for that community-based policing initiatives,\u201d Jones said. \u201cIsrael is not one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, 26 mosques and Muslim organizations in Edmonton sent a joint letter to the police commission, saying Dreichel\u2019s trip had caused \u201cdeep pain\u201d for those affected by the conflict in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
The letter added the police chief\u2019s trip \u201cdemonstrates a serious failure of judgment toward the communities he is sworn to serve and protect.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nour Salhi of the Palestinian Student Alliance at MacEwan University expressed skepticism about Driechel\u2019s trip.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf (he wanted) to connect with Muslim communities, I\u2019d invite him to actually talk to Muslims here in our city,\u201d Salhi said. \u201cHe\u2019s not going to find them over there unless he\u2019s talking to Palestinians.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pro-Palestinian group also denounced the way EPS had handled protestors on campuses.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen they come to these protests, they will threaten students with arrest,\u201d Salhi said.<\/p>\n
However, some Edmontonians like Stacey Leavitt-Wright, CEO of Jewish Federation of Edmonton, saw the police chief\u2019s trip as meaningful.<\/p>\n
\u201cCertainly, I appreciate it,\u201d Leavitt-Wright said. \u201cWe\u2019re a very small community in Edmonton.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added that the trip was important in the wake of multiple shootings which targeted synagogues in the Toronto area.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe saw some arrests here in December where people are being inspired by and picking up on the hate that\u2019s expressed by an anti-Israel movement, so having him go and experience Israel and having him humanize it in many ways is very important,\u201d Leavitt-Wright said.<\/p>\n
Driechel, though, doesn\u2019t expect any changes in the police response to protests in the city as a result of his trip.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think our response has been balanced, I think it\u2019s been collaborative,\u201d Driechel explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s eye opening to see what goes on around the world and how other police agencies, police leaders are being faced with the things that they have to deal with in their communities.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Edmonton police (EPS) chief Warren Driechel\u2019s trip to Israel, in February, drew criticism even as some Edmontonians defended…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530460,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,23752],"class_list":{"0":"post-530459","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-edmonton"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}