The Lunch @ DC with Rosa Brooks & Christy Lopez
Amidst a nationwide crisis in policing, how can DC’s Metropolitan Police Department ensure that the next generation of officers will be able to gain and keep the confidence of the community? Fair and effective policing requires officers with a nuanced understanding of issues ranging from juvenile brain development to implicit bias. The Police for Tomorrow program—a joint endeavor between the Metropolitan Police Department and Georgetown University Law Center — aims to help create a cohort of future MPD leaders who can give our city the kind of policing we want—and need—moving forward. Georgetown Law Professors Rosa Brooks (an MPD reserve officer herself) and Christy Lopez (a former Justice Department official who led numerous major police reform efforts) will talk about the initial promise the Police for Tomorrow Fellowship project is showing, and the potential they see for its future—and the future of policing.
Rosa Brooks is Associate Dean for Graduate Programs at Georgetown University Law Center and Professor of Law. Brooks is also a sworn Reserve Police Officer with the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington DC, an Adjunct Scholar at West Point’s Modern War Institute, a Senior Fellow in the New America/ASU Program on the Future of War and a columnist and contributing editor to Foreign Policy magazine. During her varied career, Brooks has worked both for international human rights NGOs and for the U.S. Departments of State and Defense, and has worked extensively in global trouble spots from Sierra Leone and Kosovo to Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2011, she was awarded the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service. Brooks publishes extensively in both the scholarly and popular press. She spent four years as a weekly opinion columnist for the Los Angeles Times, and her articles and essays have appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and dozens of other publications. Her most recent book, How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything, was a New York Times Notable Book of 2016 and was named one of the top five military non-fiction books of the year by the Military Times. Brooks is a frequent radio and television guest, with appearances on shows such as the Today Show, A.M. Joy, Real Time with Bill Maher, the Charlie Rose Show, Meet the Press, the Rachel Maddow Show, Out Front with Erin Burnett, and NPR’s Marketplace, Morning Edition and All Things Considered. Brooks is a graduate of Harvard, Oxford and Yale Law School.
Christy E. Lopez recently joined the Georgetown Law faculty as a Professor from Practice after six years at the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, where she played a leading role in the Division’s efforts to reform police departments and other law enforcement agencies to ensure constitutional policing. She directly led the team that investigated the Ferguson Police Department and was a primary drafter of the Ferguson Report and negotiator of the Ferguson consent decree. Professor Lopez’ career has been focused on criminal justice reform, and constitutional policing in particular. She has been involved in police reform efforts at the state, local, and federal levels: she has conducted independent reviews of police shootings, served on the Maryland Attorney General’s Task Force on Electronic Weapons, and was a contributing writer on the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) Commission Report on sexual violence in prisons, jails, and lockups. Professor Lopez currently serves as an Advisor on the American Law Institute (ALI) Principles of Law, Police Investigations Project. In 2016, Professor Lopez was awarded the Flame Award by the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE) for her long-term commitment to police accountability and civilian oversight. In 2015, Professor Lopez was awarded the Department of Justice’s highest employee honor, the Attorney General’s Exceptional Service award, for her work leading the Ferguson Police Department pattern-or- practice investigation. In 2013, Professor Lopez was awarded the Attorney General’s John Marshall Award for her work leading the New Orleans Police Department investigation and consent decree negotiation. Professor Lopez has her undergraduate degree from the University of California at Riverside, and her J.D. from Yale Law School. She is licensed to practice law in Washington DC and California.