In August 2011, the US Department of Justice (DOJ), Civil Rights Division, launched an investigation of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD) in response to complaints and allegations of violations of the Fair Housing Act in the Antelope Valley of southern California. Upon completion of their investigation in June 2013, the DOJ issued their findings that the LASD's Lancaster and Palmdale Stations had engaged in a pattern and practice of conducting stops, searches, and seizures that were unreasonable and in violation of the Constitution and federal law.
The LASD and DOJ subsequently entered into negotiations regarding appropriate remedies, and the parties developed the Settlement Agreement, which was ultimately signed and filed with the US District Court for the Central District of California in April 2015. The purpose of the Settlement Agreement is to ensure that the residents of the Antelope Valley are provided with police services that are lawful and fully consistent with the Constitution of the United States and contemporary policing practices.
Dr. Angie Wolf and Joseph Brann serve as lead monitors for the Settlement Agreement. Evident Change serves as the administrative organization for the project, which Dr. Wolf manages. The lead monitors and the team they have brought together offer an extensive and diverse pool of skills and experience that will assist in this endeavor.
The monitoring team is responsible for assessing and evaluating the LASD's progress in implementing and achieving the reforms outlined in the Settlement Agreement. Working with LASD and DOJ in a collaborative manner, the monitoring team will help to ensure that the agreed-upon reforms are instituted and that the constitutional policing practices and expectations laid out in the Settlement Agreement are met. In addition to the ongoing community engagement efforts described below, the monitoring team will produce semi-annual (every six months) reports describing progress toward achieving the goals of the Settlement Agreement. You can find these reports in the "Documents and Reports" section below.
One of the eight key objectives of the Settlement Agreement is to bring about improvements in the way the LASD engages with Antelope Valley community members. The goal of this community engagement is increased communication, understanding, and trust between community members and the department.
The monitors will assess and evaluate LASD's community engagement efforts by attending community meetings and events, engaging with community members, hearing from them through this website, and analyzing the results of an annual community survey that will be carefully designed to seek input from all community members.
The community is invited to reach out to the monitoring team to share observations and concerns and ask any questions related to the Settlement Agreement. Contact Barbara Lona using the information in the "Contact the Monitors" section below. Ms. Lona will direct inquiries to the appropriate team member.
Please note that the role of the monitors in Antelope Valley is limited to the activities and purposes specifically identified in the Settlement Agreement. Community members with questions or comments regarding community or law enforcement issues not related to the Settlement Agreement are encouraged to contact the appropriate government agencies and representatives, many of which are linked below.
Contact Barbara Lona at (800) 306-6223
Address mail-in inquiries to
Antelope Valley Monitoring Team
Ms. Lewis has a background in research, public policy, and community outreach, along with a wealth of lived experience. She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in political science, focusing on racial theory, and her master of public administration from the University of Southern California with a concentration/certification in public policy. For the last decade, Ms. Lewis has done freelance research and policy and data analytics for government officials and nonprofit organizations. She wants to continue to use her skills to increase racial, social, and economic equity.
Ms. McDowell focuses 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.
Dr. Angie Wolf, who holds a doctorate in ecological/community psychology from Michigan State University, will serve as a court-appointed monitor. Dr. Wolf directs all of Evident Change's justice-related work, and her areas of expertise include gang violence, policing strategies, social and organizational change, and community mobilization strategies. Dr. Wolf is the principal investigator of Evident Change's policing and gang violence research. She manages Evident Change's facilitation of the Camp Kilpatrick juvenile probation redesign in Los Angeles County. Dr. Wolf was the project director for the California Cities Gang Prevention Network, a collaboration between 13 cities that elicited information from complementary and adversarial entities to establish best practices for developing and implementing a model plan to reduce gang violence in communities. Dr. Wolf also directs 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. Currently, she is developing and evaluating strategies for innovative policing approaches in California with the Salinas Police Department, and she is also engaged in violence prevention evaluation projects with the Ventura County Sheriff's Department and the City of Richmond Police Department. She also directs 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.
Joseph Brann will also serve as a court-appointed monitor. Mr. Brann is an expert in policing, has extensive monitoring experience, and is the founder of Joseph Brann & Associates, a consulting firm dedicated to improving organizational performance and management accountability in the public sector. The firm conducts organizational assessments and evaluations on behalf of numerous local, state, and federal public safety agencies across the country.
Mr. Brann has served as a monitor or special consultant responsible for assessing and evaluating policing and jail reforms in the California jurisdictions of Riverside and Maywood, as well as the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department; Cincinnati, Ohio; Cleveland, Ohio; and Seattle, Washington. He has significant experience in the implementation of police reform measures, improving policies and systems governing the use of force and complaint investigations, and integrating enhanced data system capabilities that support meaningful evaluation of law enforcement performance.
Mr. Brann joined the Santa Ana, California, Police Department in 1969, where he became known as a pioneer in the community policing movement. In 1989, he was appointed Chief of Police in Hayward, California. His vision and leadership there resulted in successfully integrating community-oriented policing principles and problem-solving strategies, and he gained recognition as a national model for other agencies. Following passage of the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, President Clinton appointed Mr. Brann as the founding Director of the newly created Office of Community-Oriented Policing Services (COPS). The COPS Office has played a pivotal role in promoting community policing and employing collaborative problem-solving strategies to more fully engage the police with their communities. The agency added and/or redeployed more than 100,000 officers to advance community-oriented policing and had a significant influence on the reductions in crime and disorder that were experienced nationally. Mr. Brann holds an MPA from USC and a bachelor's degree in criminal justice. He is a graduate of the FBI National Academy.
Saul Green received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Michigan Law School; he is currently Of Counsel to the law firm of Miller, Canfield, Paddock, and Stone, P.L.C., where he serves as a member of the firm's litigation group. Mr. Green represents persons under criminal investigation or indictment, conducts internal investigations for organizations that may be the victims of criminal illegal conduct, provides consultation to law enforcement agencies on the implementation of police reforms and best practices, and conducts alternative dispute resolutions.
He was appointed by President William J. Clinton as the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan and served in that position from 1994 to 2001. From 2008 to 2011, Mr. Green served as the deputy mayor of Detroit, Michigan, with principal oversight of the Police, Fire, Law, and Homeland Security departments.
Mr. Green also serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Michigan Law School, where he co-teaches seminars on fair housing and public safety.
David Muhammad is a leader in the fields of criminal justice, violence prevention, and youth development. He will lead the monitoring team's community information-gathering efforts, which will include organizing and conducting listening sessions, focus groups, and individual interviews. With Ms. Barbara Lona, he will review and make recommendations regarding the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's recently implemented community-engagement initiatives.
Mr. Muhammad is the lead consultant and technical assistance provider to five California counties through the Sierra Health Foundation's Positive Youth Justice Initiative; he also provides leadership and technical assistance to the CeaseFire Violence Reduction Strategy program in the California cities of Oakland and Stockton. Mr. Muhammad is the executive director emeritus and strategic advisor to the Anti-Recidivism Coalition (ARC), which provides support and advocacy for those who have been incarcerated.
As the former chief probation officer for the Alameda County Probation Department in California, Mr. Muhammad ushered in enormous reform and moved Alameda County away from a deficits-based correctional model to a strengths-based Positive Youth Development model.
Prior to his work in California, Mr. Muhammad served as deputy commissioner of the New York City Department of Probation and as chief of committed services for the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services in Washington, DC.
Ron Sanchez will provide auditing services in relation to use-of-force incidents, personnel complaints, and investigative stops for the Antelope Valley monitoring project. Mr. Sanchez joined the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) in 1975 and retired as a captain. In 2001, upon approval of the federal consent decree between the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and the LAPD, Mr. Sanchez was handpicked to establish the LAPD's audit division, whose mission-similar to that of the implementation unit described in this court order-was to evaluate departmental efforts toward compliance with the consent decree's mandates and to oversee the department's implementation of the entire consent decree.
Within two years, the audit division moved from conception to a nationally recognized auditing entity. It was cited by the DOJ monitoring team as the "shining star of the Consent Decree." Audits included, but were not limited to, the areas of command accountability, STOP (racial profiling) data, internal affairs investigations, integrity testing, use-of-force 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. For more than four years in that role, Mr. Sanchez provided leadership as the audit division's commander and chief audit executive.
Dan Koenig will be a partner with Mr. Sanchez and will be similarly engaged in the use-of-force, personnel complaints, and investigative stops audits. Mr. Koenig worked in, supervised, and managed patrol and detective operations for 33 years at the LAPD, as well as providing direct staff support to three LAPD Chiefs of Police. Upon his retirement, he served as the executive director for the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners.
Paul Figueroa joined the Oakland Police Department (OPD) as an officer in 1995; he currently serves as the OPD's Captain of Police. Mr. Figueroa has extensive experience in field command, criminal investigations, accountability, and community policing programs. He has served as commander in the OPD's Patrol Division, Training Section, Internal Affairs Division, and Inspector General's Office, and has additionally served as Chief of Staff to the Chief of Police. He has worked to increase the legitimacy of the police, and of procedural justice practices, in Oakland, California.
Mr. Figueroa holds a bachelor's degree in political science from California State University, East Bay and a master's degree in public administration from Golden Gate University in San Francisco. In 2012, he received his doctor of education (EdD) in organizational leadership from the University of La Verne in Southern California. Combining his academic pursuits and professional vocation, he has worked to create a model for building trust between police and the communities they serve.
Mr. Figueroa is also a graduate of the FBI National Academy and the Police Executive Research Forum Senior Management Institute for Police.
Mr. Hartney focuses on stops, community survey, and data collection and analysis; he also assists the Monitors in managing 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; he also stops and data systems and analysis. Mr. Hartney has over 22 years of professional experience in local, state, and national justice-related research and statistics.
Previously as a Senior Researcher and Senior Program Specialist for 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; a national evaluation of Parents Anonymous; 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 is co-author of a college-level textbook, American Corrections (Sage Publications, 2019). 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.
Chris Scharenbroch has extensive experience with data analysis, data collection, and technical support. Since joining Evident Change, 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 Department of Justice 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.
Barbara Lona has been assisting with monitoring project management and administration at Evident Change since 2016, first as an administrative assistant and now as a program associate. She has been working since 2014 with the Los Angeles County Probation Department and other county agencies on the remodel of Camp Kilpatrick, a pioneering camp facility and rehabilitative model for youth involved in the juvenile justice system. In addition, Barbara has worked in nonprofit funding development, taught preschool, and interned with the University Hospital pediatric unit in San Antonio. Barbara has a BA in child development and BS in biology from Mount St. Mary’s College; she earned her MS in child life from the University of Laverne.
LASD agrees to ensure that all investigatory stops, seizures, and searches are conducted in accordance with the Constitution or laws of the United States. Investigatory stops shall be part of an overall crime prevention strategy and will not contribute to counterproductive divisions between LASD and the community. All investigatory stops will be adequately documented for tracking and supervision purposes.
(Please see the full agreement for exact wording and details.)
LASD shall deliver police services that are equitable, respectful, and bias-free and in a manner that promotes broad community engagement and confidence in the department. LASD will continue to conduct regular training for deputies, supervisors, and command staff to prevent discriminatory policing.
(Please see the full agreement for exact wording and details.)
LASD agrees not to violate the Fair Housing Act by participating in practices such as:
(Please see the full agreement for exact wording and details.)
LASD agrees to improve its data collection, analysis, and reporting, including establishing protocols for the collection and analysis of data to assess whether there are trends and patterns that indicate bias or practices that would run counter to constitutional and effective policing.
(Please see the full agreement for exact wording and details.)
LASD agrees to promote and strengthen partnerships within the community, to engage constructively with the community to ensure collaborative problem solving and bias-free policing, and to work to increase community confidence in the department.
(Please see the full agreement for exact wording and details.)
LASD agrees to revise its force policies and practices to reflect its commitment to upholding the Constitution in regard to protecting human life and the dignity of every individual and maintaining public safety. Antelope Valley deputies and staff will endeavor to use force only when necessary, to use only the level of force necessary for the situation, and to de-escalate the use of force at the earliest possible moment.
(Please see the full agreement for exact wording and details.)
LASD will ensure that all allegations of personnel misconduct are received and are fully and fairly investigated. Personnel who commit misconduct will be held accountable pursuant to a fair disciplinary system and consistent standards. All Antelope Valley deputies and supervisors will be provided training about proper complaint intake, classification, and investigative techniques. Audits of these practices will be conducted semi-annually.
(Please see the full agreement for exact wording and details.)
LASD will strengthen its accountability mechanisms to provide personnel with the support, mentoring, and direction necessary to consistently police constitutionality. LASD will utilize relevant data to determine compliance with the Settlement Agreement, identify trends or patterns of concern, and ensure personnel development needs are met and other appropriate corrective actions are carried out.
(Please see the full agreement for exact wording and details.)