Christine Johnson is a Project Associate at the National Policing Institute, providing project management support to the VALOR officer safety and wellness project, which currently delivers training and technical assistance to three pilot sites, as selected by NPI and the Department of Justice (DOJ) Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA). Through this project, Christine was integral in NPI’s publishing of the guidebook “Staying Healthy in the Fray: The Impact of Crowd Control Management on Officers in the Context of Civil Unrest.” In other work with NPI, Christine has contributed to after action reviews, traffic-stop studies, and organizational assessments. Prior to joining NPI, Christine served as the Strategic Analysis Specialist for the District of Columbia Criminal Justice Coordinating Council (CJCC). In this role, she was responsible for facilitating data sharing agreements and access to DC’s designated Integrated Justice Information System (IJIS), and assisted in projects aimed at forming more efficient data feed mechanisms among the District’s criminal justice agencies. She also aided in the management of federally funded initiatives which established information sharing infrastructure between the District of Columbia and the FBI. Finally, Christine guided the agency’s effort to organize and update the JUSTIS System Security and Privacy Plan, to remain in compliance with federal information security standards (FISMA).

Police Chief David Roddy retired with over 26 years of service with the Chattanooga Police Department. David is a native Chattanoogan and after graduating from Tyner High School he went on to obtain his Bachelor’s of Science at Middle Tennessee State University. Chief Roddy then returned to his hometown to begin his career as a police officer. During his time at the Chattanooga Police Department he has served as Acting Chief, Chief of Staff, Captain– Internal Affairs Division Commander, Captain– Uniformed Services Patrol Sector 3 and Captain/Lieutenant– Special Operations Division Commander/SWAT Commander. He has served in patrol, narcotics and gang investigations as well as serving more than 14 years on the department’s SWAT Team. These experiences as a leader have helped to provide a broad base of departmental expertise.

Chief Roddy’s been instrumental in the implementation of the Enhancement Law Enforcement Response to Victims (ELERV) Grant awarded to CPD in October, 2015. Because of his work with the ELERV Grant and his tremendous support of victims, Chief Roddy was nominated to join the IACP’s Victim Services Committee in the Spring of 2017. In the Spring of 2018, Chief Roddy was nominated to serve on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) National Crime Gun Intelligence Governing Board. This national board oversees and advises on the collection, management, and analysis of crime gun evidence for the purpose of identifying shooters, disrupting criminal activity, and preventing future violence in Chattanooga and other communities across the United States. Chief Roddy is also a graduate of the Federal Bureau of Investigation National Academy Session 235 and the National Executive Institute Session XLI.

Caroline Huffaker serves as a Senior Program Manager at the National Policing Institute (NPI). In this role, she is responsible for managing a number of NPI’s initiatives and grant projects within their Local Programs Division. Additionally, she provides technical assistance, policy analysis, and strategic planning on a number of complex law enforcement operations and public safety related topics. Caroline specializes in the establishment of multidisciplinary programming within the law enforcement setting as well as building coalitions across disciplines to ensure that public safety services being provided to the field are research informed and practitioner led. Prior to joining the team at NPI, Caroline worked for the Chattanooga Police Department as their Victim Services and Chaplains Director. There she established the agency’s first professional Victim Services Unit as well as contributed towards the development and implementation of several other projects at CPD. This included supporting the development of CPD’s first peer support program, integrating a Poverty Simulation into the Cadet Academy curriculum, bi-weekly policy review, revisions to the agency’s promotional process, and successfully implementing a multi-year research project with partners from two local Universities. In addition to agency work, Caroline has extensive experience in community-based advocacy, specifically in programming that served victims and survivors of gender-based violence. She considers it a privilege to have served in the field of public safety for over twelve years.

Caroline holds a bachelor’s degree from Berry College, a master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from UT-Chattanooga, and a master’s degree in Public Safety from the University of Virginia.

Frank Straub, PhD, is the Director of the National Policing Institute’s Center for Targeted Violence Prevention. Dr. Straub has conducted in-depth studies of targeted mass violence events in San Bernardino, Kalamazoo, Orlando, Parkland, and the University of North Carolina-Charlotte. He leads the Averted School Violence project, a national database, funded by the US Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, that tracks, analyzes, and reports on averted and completed school attacks. He has also led a DHS-funded Countering Violent Extremism project in Boston, MA, and consults with several NGOs in the area of counter extremism.

Dr. Straub served for more than 30 years in federal, state, and local law enforcement. He led law enforcement/public safety agencies in New York, Indiana and the State of Washington. During his tenure in White Plains, New York he established the first police-mental health co-responder team in the state. In Spokane, he established the first cross-system mental health steering committee and ensured that all officers received a minimum of 40 hours crisis intervention training. The SPD peer support team provided assistance to law enforcement agencies in eastern Washington and western Idaho.

Dr. Straub is a Non-Resident Fellow at West Point’s Center for Combatting Terrorism, an Adjunct Professor in Michigan State University’s Department of Psychiatry; a Graduate Faculty Scholar, the University of Central Florida’s Department of Psychology; and a member of Yale University’s Department of Psychiatry and Law’s Working Group on Social Isolation and Extremism. Dr. Straub has served on the US Department of Homeland Security and US Department of Justice threat assessment and school safety working groups.

Dr. Straub is a licensed therapist in Michigan. He serves as a clinician on the Calhoun County Sheriff’s Department’s Peer Support Team. In collaboration with UCF RESTORES research and treatment clinic he advises law enforcement agencies across the country on crisis intervention and peer support.