Top cop: It’s ‘natural’ for officers to suspect Ethiopians more than others

Israel Police Commissioner Roni Alsheich draws condemnations from myriad politicians after he appears to say it’s “natural” for law-enforcement officers to be more suspicious of Ethiopian Israelis than of other citizens.

“Studies the world over have proven that immigrants and young people are invariably more involved in crime than others,” he tells a gathering of the Israel Bar Association in Tel Aviv, in response to a question about persistent accusations of police brutality and racial discrimination against Ethiopian Israelis.

“When a police officer comes across a suspicious person, his brain suspects him more than it would suspect someone else,” he continues, emphasizing that “over-policing is natural” when it comes to Ethiopians, apparently due to the aforementioned statistics linking them, as members of an immigrant community, to higher crime rates.

Still, Alsheich adds, the Israel Police has been working together with leaders in the Ethiopian Israeli community in a bid to curb such over-policing.