The Independent Monitor will be assisted by a team of independent Subject Matter Experts (“Monitoring Team”) with extensive experience and commitment to civil rights and constitutional policing, as well as dedication to the Newark Police Division and the Newark community.  The Monitoring Team consists of community advocates, individuals from the law enforcement community with prior experience handling and implementing Consent Decrees, and former law enforcement professionals and leading academics, many of whom have prior experience overseeing Consent Decrees involving structural changes to law enforcement agencies.

Rutgers School of Criminal Justice

The School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University-Newark was founded in 1974 by an act of the New Jersey Legislature.  Its purpose is to (1) produce scholarship of the highest quality on crime and justice, (2) provide state and local justice agencies with crucial evidence and consultation about the policy and practice of criminal justice, and (3) produce graduates who take their places as productive and respected scholars in the field.

Students and faculty are driven by a passionate concern about problems of crime, public security, and social justice.  They are diverse in their backgrounds and training.  They offer a wide array of rigorous analytical methods and sharply honed theoretical perspectives to tackle important problems that affect peoples’ lives.  The School of Criminal Justice is a leader on innovative techniques to address serious criminal justice issues.

Source: http://rscj.newark.rutgers.edu/

Rutgers Center on Policing

The Center on Policing at Rutgers University, formerly known as the Police Institute, was founded in 2001 by then director, Rutgers Professor George Kelling.  The Center on Policing’s mission is the integration of research and best practices into police operations, problem solving, community policing and participation, and the development of criminal justice policy and practices.  The Police Institute works in collaboration with community and law enforcement partners.  It serves as a neutral convener of criminal justice and community partners, assists agencies and communities to analyze and solve problems, provides technical assistance to criminal justice and community agencies, and provides educational services to criminal justice and community agencies through its various collaborations including, to the Newark Violence Reduction Initiative in partnership with John Jay College, and the National Network for Safe Communities, Fugitive Safe Surrender, and the Pathways to Productive Citizenship.            

Tom O’Reilly – Executive Policy Advisor, Center on Policing.  Mr. O’Reilly is a noted thought leader in the areas of law enforcement, criminal justice, and homeland security.  He has extensive experience in the law enforcement field, including as Director of the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative (“NSI”), Senior Policy Advisor to the Bureau of Justice Assistance (“BJA”) in the U.S. Department of Justice, and Chief Operating Officer and Chief Transition Officer to the New Jersey Department of Law and Public Safety (Office of the Attorney General).  As director of NSI, Mr. O’Reilly led a team of representatives from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Directorate of National Intelligence, the Department of Homeland Security, and state, local and tribunal agencies in the implementation of the reporting system in all fusion centers nationwide.  As senior policy advisor for the BJA, Mr. O’Reilly contributed to a wide range of justice information-sharing initiatives including, fusion center programs, intelligence training, justice systems information sharing and the National Information Exchange Model Program Manager’s Office Outreach Program.  Prior to his position at BJA, he was the Administrator of the New Jersey Department of Law and Public Safety (the “DL&PS”), a department of 9,600 employees and a budget of approximately $1 billion.  The DL&PS housed and managed the state police, emergency management, fusion center operations, criminal justice system coordination, criminal and civil legal services and juvenile justice.  Previously, Mr. O’Reilly served as the Assistant Director of the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice, Chief of Police Programs for the State Law Enforcement Planning Agency, and planning officer for the Police Division of Trenton, New Jersey.

Linda Tartaglia – Director, Center on Policing.  Ms. Tartaglia oversees its day-to-day operations, including project development and management.  Ms. Tartaglia has extensive experience in a wide variety of law enforcement projects in the DL&PS, and in national and federal law enforcement initiatives in Washington D.C.

Wayne Fisher, PhD – Senior Policy Advisor, Center on Policing.  Dr. Fisher is a consultant on various law enforcement issues, Adjunct Faculty at the Rutgers University School of Criminal Justice, former Deputy Director of the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice, DL&PS, and former Police Officer and Detective in the Newark Police department.  Dr. Fisher was Chair of the Police Training Commission in the State of New Jersey, which set policies for all New Jersey police departments on a wide range of issues.  He is an expert in several law enforcement topics, and has experience in advising the Newark Police Department on policy, procedure, internal affairs, and other issues.

Strategic Policy Partnership, LLC

Strategic Policy Partnership, LLC (“SPP”) comprises public safety and public policy experts who assist public and private organizations to improve results from their investment in services and strengthen their relationships with key federal, state and local partners and their communities.  SPP’s staff includes former senior law enforcement executives and experts.  SPP provides a wide range of services, including management analysis of organizational effectiveness, development of strategies aimed at achieving enhanced organizational effectiveness, and development of strategies for community outreach and partnership.

Source:  http://www.policy-partners.com/

Robert Wasserman – Chairman and Principal, Strategic Policy Partnership, LLC.  Mr. Wasserman is an internationally recognized expert in law enforcement affairs and community relations.  He previously served as a Senior Advisor on International Law Enforcement for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement at the U. S. Department of State, served as Chief of Staff of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, and was sent to Bosnia following the war, as both Deputy Commissioner for Operations and Acting Commissioner of the United Nations International Police Task Force.  He has had an extensive career in law enforcement, having served as a senior executive in several large American police agencies, including Dayton, OH, Boston, MA and Houston, TX.  During his career, he has been the initiator or at the forefront of a number of seminal policing initiatives, including 311 and differential police response, police performance management (CompStat), neighborhood-oriented policing, the Kansas City Patrol Experiments, Dayton Team Policing, the San Diego Beat Profiling initiative, the Boston Community Disorders strategy and the Police Recruit Training Year.

Robert Haas – Senior Consulting Associate, Strategic Policy Partnership, LLC.  Mr. Haas is the retired Police Commissioner of Cambridge, Massachusetts.  He previously served as the Secretary of Public Safety for Massachusetts and Governor Mitt Romney’s Homeland Security Advisor.  Commissioner Haas previously served as the Massachusetts Undersecretary of Law Enforcement and Homeland Security, Chief of Police of the Westwood, Massachusetts Police Department, and in the Morris Township, New Jersey Police Department, departing as a Lieutenant.  He is currently a Senior Fellow to the CNA Corporation, a Senior Fellow at the Police Foundation, Washington DC, on the IACP Committee on Homeland Security, and has provided his experience to a number of other public safety organizations.

The New Jersey Institute for Social Justice

The New Jersey Institute for Social Justice is a Newark-based urban research and advocacy organization dedicated to the advancement of New Jersey’s urban areas and residents.  Established in 1999, the Institute provides a dynamic and independent voice for change necessary to create just, vibrant, and inclusive urban communities throughout New Jersey.

The Institute focuses on expanding access to economic opportunity for low-income and minority residents of Newark and other urban areas in the state.  It advocates for local, regional and state government that is effective, equitable, and accountable to the concerns of urban residents and their communities, and that ensures the civil rights and other equal opportunities of minorities and low-income individuals in New Jersey.

The Institute advances this non-partisan agenda through policy-related research and analysis, development and implementation of model programs, advocacy efforts (including litigation when appropriate) and sustained public education.

Source:  http://www.njisj.org/about/

Ryan Haygood, Esq. – President and CEO, New Jersey Institute for Social Justice (“Institute”). Mr. Haygood is one of the nation’s leading civil rights lawyers. As President and CEO of the Institute, Mr. Haygood works to empower communities of color across New Jersey by ensuring an open and inclusive democratic process, access to economic mobility, and a fair criminal justice system. For more than a decade, Mr. Haygood has been engaged in social justice advocacy on a national level, previously serving as the Deputy Director of Litigation at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF). At LDF, Mr. Haygood litigated some of the most important civil rights cases of our time, including twice defending the constitutionality of a core provision of the federal Voting Rights Act before the United States Supreme Court.

A resident of Newark, New Jersey, Mr. Haygood is deeply invested in his community, and works closely with other leaders to ensure that government agencies, including law enforcement, are responsive to their needs. He speaks and writes regularly on issues concerning race, law, civil rights, and democracy.

Kevin Bethel – recently retired Deputy Commissioner of the Philadelphia Police Department, the fourth largest police department in the United States with 6,600 sworn personnel.  Deputy Commissioner Bethel was in charge of Patrol Operations and oversaw 21 patrol districts, neighborhood services and community relations units.  Prior to his appointment as Deputy Commissioner, he served as Commanding Officer of the 17th Police District.  His assignments included positions with the Patrol Bureau, Special Investigative Bureau, Narcotics Strike Force, Narcotics Field Unit and the Internal Affairs Division.

Natashia Tidwell, Esq. – is the first female Lieutenant in the history of the Cambridge (MA) Police Department.  Upon leaving the police department, Ms. Tidwell served as a trial attorney in the Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section and as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Massachusetts.  Before entering private practice, Ms. Tidwell was an Associate Professor of Law at New England Law | Boston where she taught courses in Criminal Procedure, Evidence, and Crime and Policing in Urban Communities.  Ms. Tidwell currently serves as Counsel in the law firm of Hogan Lovells in the Boston office, and is a member of the City of Boston’s citizen oversight entity, the Community Ombudsman Oversight Panel.  As an Ombudsman, Ms. Tidwell reviews internal affairs investigations for fairness and thoroughness and makes periodic recommendations to the police department for improvements in policy, training, and other areas.

Julio Thompson, Esq. – Assistant Attorney General and Director of Civil Rights Unit, State of Vermont.  AAG Thompson is an expert on use of force, force reporting, internal affairs investigations, early intervention and officer discipline, among other things.  Mr. Thompson has spent over two decades in the areas of police monitoring and accountability.  His previous experience includes police oversight and auditing for Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Department consent decree, Seattle Police Department consent decree, as well as several other agencies and jurisdictions.

Maggie Goodrich, Esq. – Until 2017, Ms. Goodrich was the Chief Information Officer of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). She was responsible for the development and implementation of all LAPD risk management systems, including the officer early intervention system, mandated by the federal consent decree between the city of Los Angeles and the United States. Prior to joining the LAPD, Ms. Goodrich served as Policy Director for Homeland Security and Public Safety for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in Los Angeles. Ms. Goodrich has assisted police departments in Seattle, Cleveland, Chicago, and several other jurisdictions on implementing law enforcement technology platforms.  A lawyer, she has practiced litigation and white collar criminal defense at Howrey LLP. Prior to entering law, Ms. Goodrich served as an Information Technology Project Manager in software development and e-commerce.