CAIR: Fla. Coalition to Address Anti-Muslim Law Enforcement Training

On Wednesday, July 11, the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-FL) will hold news conferences in Tampa and Pembroke Pines to release a letter from a coalition of Muslim organizations that asks the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) to address its repeated use of a notorious anti-Muslim bigot as a counterterrorism trainer.

 

t the news conferences, CAIR-FL will release a letter sent to the FDLE requesting that the department no longer use Sam Kharoba of the Counter Terrorism Operations Center (CTOC) as a trainer on issues related to Islam and Muslims.


The coalition's letter asserts that Kharoba's training materials on Islam are riddled with inaccuracies, sweeping generalizations and stereotypes, that he is unqualified as a subject matter expert on either Islam or countering violent extremism and that his training has elicited disturbingly prejudiced responses from trainees.


That letter also asks that officers who received Kharoba's biased training be given accurate and unbiased retraining by credible experts and that the FDLE adopt a policy ensuring that those offering counterterrorism training be vetted for their academic credentials, operational experience and accuracy of course content.


Documents obtained by CAIR-FL reveal at least 21 separate trainings conducted by Kharoba in Florida from 2005-2012. In many cases, these trainings were sanctioned by the FDLE.


The documents were obtained through a nationwide effort in which CAIR chapters filed 87 separate public records requests about possible Islamophobic training of local, state and national law enforcement


Kharoba's main training manual, "A Law Enforcement Guide to Understanding Islamist Terrorism," combines vile accusations against Islam, sweeping generalizations targeting all Muslims and factual inaccuracies.