Dr. Angie Wolf, Chief Program Officer (CPO) for Evident Change, will serve as a court-appointed monitor. Dr. Wolf directs all justice-related work at Evident Change and has expertise in the areas of gang violence, policing strategies, social and organizational change, and community mobilization strategies. Dr. Wolf serves as co-monitor for the Settlement Agreement between the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) in Antelope Valley along with Joseph Brann. Before accepting the role of CPO, Dr. Wolf was the principal investigator of Evident Change’s policing and gang violence research. She managed Evident Change’s facilitation of the Camp Kilpatrick juvenile probation redesign in Los Angeles County. She was also the project director for the California Cities Gang Prevention Network, a collaboration between 13 cities that worked with city government, law enforcement, and community groups to establish best practices for developing and implementing a model plan to reduce gang violence in communities. Dr. Wolf also directs multi-jurisdictional research on female gang involvement, funded by a grant from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Additionally, Dr. Wolf has reviewed and assessed consent decree reforms against the State of California Department of Juvenile Justice for the Office of the Special Master.

Dr. Wolf has extensive experience working with law enforcement agencies. She has developed and evaluated strategies for innovative policing approaches in California with the Salinas Police Department, and she was engaged in violence prevention evaluation projects with the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department and the City of Richmond Police Department. She also directed a Bureau of Justice Assistance-funded project to develop training tools and curriculum for law enforcement relating to children of immigrants in Austin, Texas, and Oakland, California. Dr. Wolf has also worked with the San Francisco Police Department to train, implement, and evaluate a protocol for children at the scene of an arrest. Dr. Wolf holds a PhD in ecological/community psychology from Michigan State University.

Mr. Joseph Brann will serve as a court-appointed monitor. He has extensive police monitoring experience and is currently serving as co-monitor for the US DOJ/LASD Settlement Agreement. He is the founder and CEO of Joseph Brann & Associates, a consulting firm dedicated to improving organizational performance and management accountability in the public sector. He has significant experience with the implementation of police reform measures, improving policies and systems governing use of force and complaint investigations, and integrating enhanced data system capabilities that support meaningful evaluation of law enforcement performance.

In addition to conducting organizational assessments and other studies and evaluations on behalf of dozens of local, state, and federal public safety agencies across the country, he has served as a monitor or special consultant responsible for assessing and evaluating policing and jail reforms in a variety of jurisdictions (Riverside and Maywood, California; Cincinnati and Cleveland, Ohio; Seattle, Washington; and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department).

Mr. Brann began his law enforcement career in 1969 when he joined the Santa Ana, California, Police Department, which was an early pioneer in the community policing movement. In 1989, he was appointed to serve as chief of police in Hayward, California, where his vision and leadership in successfully integrating community policing principles and problem-solving strategies were recognized as a model for other agencies. In 1994, Mr. Brann was appointed by President Clinton to serve as the founding director of US DOJ’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS). In addition to adding and redeploying more than 100,000 police officers to support the practice of community policing, COPS has played a crucial role in fostering collaborative problem-solving efforts among police and the communities they serve, as well as in providing resources that have had a major influence on reducing crime and disorder. Mr. Brann holds a BA from California State University, Fullerton; an MPA from the University of Southern California; and is a graduate of the FBI National Academy.

Mr. Louis Verdugo, JD will focus on management and supervisory oversight, community engagement, and personnel practices. Mr. Verdugo served as a litigator and administrator for the California DOJ for 35 years. During that time his roles included Deputy Attorney General, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, and Senior Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Section, where he conducted and oversaw civil rights cases addressing policy misconduct, employment and housing discrimination, equal protection, and labor law. He has a BA from Stanford University and a JD from Loyola University of Los Angeles.

Mr. Chris Hartney is an experienced project manager and researcher. As he has for the past six years as a member of the US DOJ/LASD Settlement Agreement monitoring team, he will manage many of the day-to-day aspects of the monitoring work including establishing compliance metrics, report writing, working with colleagues on management and supervisory oversight, and stops and data systems and analysis. Mr. Hartney has over 20 years of professional experience in local, state, and national justice-related research and statistics.

Previously with Evident Change, Mr. Hartney’s work included a national evaluation of the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative; bed-space needs forecasts for youth tried as adults in Baltimore, Maryland, and youth involved with the juvenile justice system in Arkansas; a review of the causes and impacts of youth de-incarceration in California’s youth prison system; the development of a new approach to prison for young adults, emphasizing intensive, strengths-based rehabilitative and educational services in small, secure facilities; a national evaluation of Parents Anonymous; the potential cost savings of alternatives to incarceration for non-serious adult offenders; the validation of a Structured Decision Making® system in Washington, DC; the interplay of media coverage, public sentiment, data trends, and policy making with regard to youth violence in major US cities; and a survey of health care access for system-involved youth in 58 California counties. Mr. Hartney has authored numerous Evident Change publications on special areas of focus in justice and corrections including disproportionate representation of people of color in the justice system, women, Native American youth, youth in the adult corrections system, and international corrections. He is co-author of a college-level textbook, American Corrections (Sage Publications, 2019). Prior to joining Evident Change, his research work included educational assessments and research on health consequences for communities exposed to industrial accidents. Mr. Hartney has a BA from the University of California at Berkeley and has completed all master’s-level coursework in experimental psychology at San Francisco State University.

Ms. Teri Black will lead work related to hiring, recruiting, and retainment. She has more than 20 years of experience in executive search and is the founder and CEO of Teri Black & Company. Before entering the executive search profession, Ms. Black served as Chief of Staff in the US DOJ Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS). As part of her efforts to advance community policing, she was the administration’s key strategist on numerous public safety policy initiatives. Her prior local government experience includes management positions in the Cities of Santa Ana, Lakewood, and Oakland, California. Extending back to her role at COPS, Ms. Black’s work has allowed her to establish an extensive network of government and law enforcement professionals across the country. Besides governmental agencies, Ms. Black’s clients also include special districts, utility agencies, and non-profit organizations. Ms. Black earned her master’s degree in public administration from the University of Southern California and holds a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from California State University, Fullerton. She is a graduate of the UCLA Anderson School of Management’s invitational certificate program for entrepreneurs and a founding member of the California Local Government Management Collaborative’s Preparing the Next Generation committee, which has served as a model for the national association.

Mr. Aman Sebahtu, JD, is Evident Change’s Director of Justice and leads the organization’s work with adult and juvenile justice and community justice through grassroots reform and transformation efforts. For the monitoring project, Mr. Sebahtu will focus on community engagement work. Mr. Sebahtu brings a depth of experience leading work in community violence prevention, police reform, and the implementation and evaluation of innovative justice programs. He joined Evident Change in 2017 as community violence prevention manager and has led community-based system transformation efforts. He is currently a member of the monitoring team for the US DOJ/LASD Settlement Agreement in the Antelope Valley, focused on community engagement and accountability to the community.

An Oakland native, Mr. Sebahtu was previously the operations director at the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, where he provided technical assistance, consulting, research, organizational development, and advocacy in the fields of juvenile and adult justice, youth development, and violence prevention to an array of nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and philanthropic foundations. Prior to that, he was a site manager at the W. Haywood Burns Institute, where he provided strategic direction to system and community stakeholders working to improve local and state policies contributing to racial and ethnic disparities. Mr. Sebahtu earned a BA in sociology and African American studies from Emory University and a JD from the University of San Francisco School of Law.

Ms. Georgina Mendoza McDowell, JD, is a Senior Policing Fellow at Evident Change and will focus on community engagement and stops. Ms. McDowell has been working in the youth violence prevention and reduction field for over 14 years. Her experience in this field ranges from local, national, and international arenas. She worked as a Senior Crime and Violence Advisor for Creative Associates International, based out of Washington, DC with an emphasis on juvenile justice reform, violence prevention, and family and community engagement in the Latin America and Caribbean region. Ms. McDowell was a political appointee in President Obama’s DOJ where she served as a Senior Policy Advisor at the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) with a focus on youth violence prevention efforts and reducing and eliminating racial and ethnic disparities. Ms. McDowell served as the policy lead on the National Forum for Youth Violence Prevention, a White House initiative that brought diverse federal agencies to partner with local jurisdictions that create comprehensive, strategic city-wide plans to prevent and reduce youth violence by implementing prevention, intervention, enforcement, and reentry strategies.

Prior to joining OJJDP, she served as the Community Safety Director and Senior Deputy City Attorney/City Prosecutor for the city of Salinas, California. As Community Safety Director, she led the effort to develop and implement a strategic work plan that incorporates evidence-based strategies for gang prevention, intervention, suppression, and re-entry. In October 2011, Ms. McDowell was invited by then US Attorney General Eric Holder to be a member of his National Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence. Ms. McDowell earned her bachelor’s degree in History and Political Science from Santa Clara University and her Juris Doctor from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, California.

Mr. Ron Sanchez is a Certified Governmental Auditor (CGAP) and an expert in use of force (UOF). He will lead the activities related to UOF policies, training, tactics, and the investigation and managerial review of UOF incidents. Mr. Sanchez joined the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) in 1975 and retired as a senior captain. As part of the 2001 Consent Decree between the US DOJ and LAPD following the Rodney King incident, Mr. Sanchez led the establishment of LAPD’s audit division and served as it’s commander and chief audit executive. The mission of the division was to evaluate departmental efforts toward compliance with the Consent Decree’s mandates and to oversee the department’s implementation of the decree. Within two years, the audit division moved from conception to a nationally recognized auditing entity. Audits included, but were not limited to, the use-of-force, command accountability, STOP (racial profiling) data, internal affairs investigations, integrity testing, UOF investigation and adjudication, training plans and delivery, arrest and bookings, field operations and activities, detective operations, officer-involved shootings, community engagement, and critical incident response.

Upon retiring from the LAPD, Mr. Sanchez opened Veritas Assurance Group, Inc., which specializes in performance audits for public safety agencies, assisting managers with identifying and managing their risk exposures, developing an effective control environment, and assisting with the implementation and compliance of consent decrees. Mr. Sanchez served on the monitoring team for the Consent Decree between the Prison Law Office and the Sacramento County Probation Department. Other clients include the Pasadena Police Department, Oakland Police Department, Americans for Effective Law Enforcement, Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office, Hollywood Business Improvement District, Los Angeles Police Command Officers’ Association, Calexico Police Department, Los Angeles Police Revolver and Athletic Club, and the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training. Mr. Sanchez is a member of the monitoring team for the US DOJ/LASD Settlement Agreement in Antelope Valley, with a particular focus on UOF. Mr. Sanchez, in partnership with Mr. Koenig, will focus on UOF, personnel complaints, and accountability audits.

Mr. Sanchez is a published author and an avid martial artist who holds multiple black belts, and teaches martial arts and defensive tactics on a national and international level. His students have won numerous national and international competitions. 

Mr. Dan Koenig retired as a commander from the Los Angeles Police Department after 33 years of service. Mr. Koenig will be leading the section on personnel complaints and auditing services for personnel complaints, UOF, and accountability. At LAPD, in addition to working, supervising, and managing patrol and detective operations, Mr. Koenig provided direct staff support to three chiefs of police during his career. He also served as the executive director for the board of Los Angeles Police Commissioners after his retirement.

With Mr. Sanchez, Mr. Koenig established the LAPD audit division to evaluate the department’s efforts toward compliance with the mandates of the 2001 Consent Decree and oversaw the department’s implementation of the entire Consent Decree. Mr. Koenig is a member of the monitoring team for the US DOJ/LASD Settlement Agreement in Antelope Valley, with a particular focus on audits of personnel complaints, UOF, and management and organizational accountability.

Dr. Todd Franke will be the principal investigator for the community survey. Dr. Franke is a professor of Social Welfare at the University of California at Los Angeles. Trained in social work and educational psychology, Dr. Franke seeks to achieve a better understanding of, and improve the responsiveness of, service systems in the fields of social services, education, and health. Using cognitive theory to better define policy issues related to the integration of these two important fields, Dr. Franke’s research has focused in part on the impact of disability and chronic illness on school-age children. He is currently conducting a study, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, on the use of personal assistance services for children with disabilities. In addition, Dr. Franke studies how adolescents solve social problems, urban mobility and its impact on children’s education and social development, and how to successfully integrate health and social services in school settings. Dr. Franke holds an MSW and a PhD in Educational Psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Mr. Chris Scharenbroch, Director of Analytics at Evident Change, has extensive experience with data analysis, data collection, and technical support. He will assist in monitoring data processing and analytics. He has worked on a variety of projects, including risk assessment analyses for child protective services agencies in Minnesota; California; and Queensland, Australia. Recently, he has been analyzing data for a DOJ evaluation of the Baltimore Police Department’s stop and arrest history. He has developed Structured Decision Making® data management reports for jurisdictions in Minnesota, California, New Jersey, Virginia, and Queensland. In 2004, he began serving as the primary analyst for “ad hoc analytics,” a data analysis and reporting service retained by various jurisdictions in the state of California. Mr. Scharenbroch received his bachelor’s degree in sociology with a concentration in analysis and research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Ms. Emily Ramasamy, Program Support Manager at Evident Change, will assist in producing manuals, reports, presentations, and various other documents for the monitoring team. Ms. Ramasamy has a BS in economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Ms. Erin Hanusa, Director of Communications and Partnerships, leads Evident Change’s strategic communications and public relations as well as conducting issue- and project-specific campaigns. She will provide assistance with public-facing communication and messaging. At Evident Change, she oversees fundraising and development efforts for the organization. Ms. Hanusa has broad experience in writing, editing, and publication design for a variety of audiences and users in both print and digital media. She received her MFA from the University of Virginia and her BA in English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Ms. Sarah Covington is a Researcher at Evident Change and will serve as an analyst for the monitoring team. She has a master’s degree in public health from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she focused on epidemiology with an interest in the social determinants of health. Prior to this, she worked for the Wisconsin Department of Health Services coordinating data collection and analysis for a report documenting health disparities in the state.