Madison Forum Speaker -
Chief Deputy Sheriff Lynda Coker

on
Monday, September 11, 2006

Lynda Coker began her career with the Cobb County Sheriff’s office in 1986 as the Executive Assistant for the Sheriff.  In 2004 Sheriff Neil Warren appointed her as his Chief Deputy Sheriff.

At the Madison Forum Luncheon on September 11, Ms. Coker reported on her experiences as a member of The Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange. She visited Israel this year as part of the 14th delegation to that country.

The Exchange was started in 1992, by Dr Robbie Friedman, A Georgia State University professor, so that law enforcement executives in Georgia could interact, network, get to know, international law enforcement officers from around the world before the 1996 Olympics.  It grew into a law enforcement exchange of Israeli officers visiting Georgia and Georgia Officers visiting Israel. It is now branching out. This group included the chief of the Miami, FL, Police Department as well as executives from all branches of Georgia law enforcement from Sheriffs’ Departments to the GBI.

In 1999 former Sheriff Bill Hutson sent Ms. Coker, as a representative of the National Sheriff’s Association, to a National Task Force meeting organized to look at weapons of mass destruction and terrorism.  250 law enforcement officials from all over the U.S. met in Washington D.C. to discuss this issue. Ms. Coker said she heard about biological weapons, threats to our communities, border security.  Most of the need focused on the firefighters and other first responders.  From that meeting Ms. Coker managed to secure a $500,000 grant for the Cobb County Fire Department to start purchasing hazmat material. But no one was prepared to listen to the other subjects until 9/11 occurred. 

Ms. Coker is concerned, since coming back from Israel, that we in America don’t realize that we are at war. We are very complacent. We think we are too big to be troubled.

Israel is at war and knows how to fight it.  The country is small, about the size of New Jersey, 290 miles long.  The population is almost 7 million people. 76% is Jewish, 16% is Muslim, and 2% is Christian.  It is bordered by some of the most hostile regions in the entire world.  The group flew into Tel Aviv and then drove to Haifa, which is basically an academic community.  They drove all around the Golan Heights, the Sea of Galilee, all of which is the most sacred ground in the entire world to the Jews, the Muslims, and the Christians.  Then they went to Jerusalem, one square mile of land also important to the three major religions.  Everyone wants to maintain it and keep control of it.  The majority of the population resides in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank because most of the rest of the country is desert.

At each place they visited they were briefed by every aspect of their police department.  Israeli National Police has about 28,000 police officers.  About 8,000 of them are border guards. The group saw police precincts, prisons, border check points, and communications centers.  The one square mile of Jerusalem has 350 surveillance cameras.  All the restaurants and shopping malls have security. Mall security starts in the parking lot with a check of cars and busses. And all bags are checked on the way in. Suicide bombers could be anyplace. 28% of a mall budget goes for security as against 2% in America.  The malls hire the security officers which are trained by the National Police.

The group also visited police training academies, the Knesset, which is their Legislature, and their Supreme Court. This country is the only Democracy in the whole area. Their court system, and legislature are just like ours, and the people value their freedom.  They live with the threat of terror every day, every hour, every minute, because the people around them not only want their land, but they want to annihilate them as a people.  We are also on that list.  We just have a larger piece of land, and there are more of us.

Israelis have done an outstanding job in researching and learning about suicide bombers, the explosives they use, how they can identify this before it becomes a threat to their country.  One of the things that they absolutely think is paramount as far as counter terrorism is the sharing of information.  It is critical, and they do an outstanding job of it.  They apprehend about 95 percent of suicide bombers before they cause trouble. They get good information and share it with all branches.

Ms. Coker says one thing she took from the 1999 meeting was the importance of sharing information, but not much happened until 9/11.  She says the FBI is doing a little better, but it is still critical in this country.  We will never have enough law enforcement officials, public safety officials, fire fighters, sheriff’s deputies, police officers, even including our military, to fight off this terrorism, unless we join our resources and combat this enemy as one.  And we are going to have to profile.  But we are going to have to profile our enemy, and we are going to have to be on the lookout for our enemy.

The Israelis learn about community policing from us.  We need to learn more about counter terrorism from them. They have the information.  We don’t.   We need to learn from them how to protect our borders.  They don’t play.  Border patrol in that country is serious business. We need to do a better job on our borders.

Ms. Coker finished by saying that Sheriff Warren and Director Mickey Lloyd and the law enforcement community in Cobb County has pulled together since 9/11.

They chair the Cobb County Homeland Security Task Force.  They meet quarterly and talk about issues.  They know that sharing information and resources is critical to providing safety in this community. They will continue to be vigilant and try to be ready