Join us October 27th for an engaging dialogue about the future of policing. In true LT style, panelists will offer different perspectives, and you will leave with a better understanding of the complexity of the issues, the range of solutions being proposed, and where you can plug in to learn more and take action. In addition to the panel discussion, there will be small group breakout sessions and time for Q&A.
LT Alumni Challenge Nights, similar to Challenge Days experienced during the 10-month Flagship Program, provide space for the LT community to come together, hear from leading experts, and talk about issues that matter. If you're like many alumni who cite the Challenge Day as one of their favorite parts of the Flagship Program, we hope you will join us for this important conversation!
Moderator: Marcus Harrison Green, Founder and Publisher of the South Seattle Emerald
Panelists:
Monisha Harrell, LT’11, Senior Partner, Rule Seven LLC, Deputy Monitor for the Oversight Commission of the Seattle Police Dept
John Hayes, LT’03, Captain, Seattle Police Department
Rob Saka, LT’18, Technology Lawyer, Microsoft and appointed to the King County Charter Commission
Ticket: $5-$50
Who: This event is for LT alumni, current class members, honorary LT, and their guests.
Speaker Bios:
Monisha Harrell, LT’11 (she/her), a Seattle native, is Board Chair for Equal Rights Washington and chairs the National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund.
Monisha has served as a fellow for Lifelong AIDS Alliance, co-chair of the Capitol Hill LGBTQ Public Safety Task Force, an appointee to the City of Seattle’s 2017 search committee for the new Director of Police Accountability, and co-chair for the De-Escalate Washington campaign committee (I-1000) requiring de-escalation training for all law enforcement officers in Washington State in 2018. The Stranger named Monisha one of “The Smartest People in Seattle Politics” in 2013, and she was most recently honored as the Greater Seattle Business Association's Community Leader of the Year for 2018.
As Chair of Equal Rights Washington, Monisha has helped lead work to ban conversion therapy for minors in Washington State, pass an updated Uniform Parentage Act to support LGBTQ families, and ban trans panic and gay panic as legal defenses for violence against the LGBTQ community.
Harrell was recently appointed (July 2020) by Governor Jay Inslee to serve on a task force to provide recommendations for legislation on independent investigations involving police use of force, and recently completed work (June 2020) as a member of Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s Hate Crime Advisory Working Group.
In 2019, Monisha participated in a leadership exchange program with the American Council of Young Political Leaders (ACYPL) supporting LGBTQ community advancement in both Thailand and Malaysia.
Monisha was recently appointed Deputy Monitor for Seattle Police Department Consent Decree. She has an undergraduate degree from Columbia University, and an MBA from the University of Washington Foster School of Business. In 2017, Monisha was named The University of Washington Consulting and Business Development Center’s Alumni of the Year.
Marcus Harrison Green is the founder and publisher of the South Seattle Emerald, a columnist for the Seattle Times, a former Reporting Fellow with YES! Magazine, a past board member of the Western Washington Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and a recipient of Crosscut’s Courage Award for Culture. Growing up in South Seattle, he experienced first-hand the neglect of news coverage in the area by local media, which taught him the value of narratives. After an unfulfilling stint working for a Los Angeles based hedge-fund in his twenties, Marcus returned to his community determined to tell its true story, which led him to start the South Seattle Emerald, and eventually move on to cover the area as a reporter for the Seattle Times. He was named one of Seattle's most influential people by Seattle Magazine in 2016.
Captain John F. Hayes, Jr., LT’03, was born and raised in Seattle. He is a 38-year veteran of the Seattle Police Department encompassing a diverse range of responsibilities and experience, most recently as Captain for SPD of the Audit, Research, & Policy Section. Captain Hayes is a graduate of the University of Washington, earning a Bachelor’s Degree in Social Welfare and Women’s Studies and a Master’s Degree in Social Work.
Captain Hayes has served as an advisor for the University of Chicago School of Social Services Administration gang program: National Youth Gang Suppression and Intervention and was appointed by the Governor of Washington to the State Task Force on Children’s Justice. Captain Hayes has been an instructor, facilitator and guest presenter for the Washington State Bar Association’s Washington Criminal Justice Institute Conference, The King County Bar Association, Seattle University, University of Washington, numerous schools, churches and organizations within the community.
He has trained thousands of people, both locally and nationally, in the areas of family and youth intervention services, gang violence, youth truancy and more specifically, in working with high-risk juvenile populations. In 2011, Captain Hayes was honored by his high school alma mater, Bishop Blanchet High School in Seattle, as a Distinguished Alumni. This same year he was also recognized as the first recipient of the University of Washington’s Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Distinguished Alumni award. In 2013 he was inducted into the Blanchet High School Hall of Fame.
In June 2016, he graduated from the FBI National Academy, graduate level. Captain Hayes continues to use his expertise in community organizing, outreach and problem solving to address many of the concerns facing communities today, He is a life member of the NAACP, former National Chair of the National Black Police Association and a former president of the Black Law Enforcement Association of Washington.
Rob Saka, LT’18, is a security and compliance attorney at Microsoft Corporation, where he leads frontline legal support for business and engineering teams in the Experiences and Devices product group. At Microsoft, Rob advises senior stakeholders on issues related to cybersecurity, privacy, and digital safety. Prior to joining Microsoft Rob was an Associate at Perkins Coie in Seattle, where he focused his legal practice on the commercialization of intellectual property and emerging technology assets, including cloud computing and machine learning.
A West Seattle resident, Rob has been a strong advocate in his various communities over the years, including by: serving on nonprofit boards such as the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle, representing homeless military veterans pro bono via the Seattle Stand Down initiative, providing legal advice to underserved entrepreneurs with Communities Rise, and volunteering to be head coach for his daughter’s Little League baseball team. More recently, Rob was appointed to serve on the King County Charter Review Commission where he helped champion and pass three police accountability and equity reforms which will appear on the general election ballot in November 2020. The Puget Sound Business Journal named him a 40 Under 40 honoree for 2020.
Before law school, Rob served for 10 years as an Intelligence Officer in the Air Force Reserves where he led a team of troops focused on combatting threats in air and cyberspace. He is a veteran of the Iraq War, having deployed overseas in the "troop surge" of 2007. Born in Minneapolis, MN, Rob moved to Kent, WA in middle school. He earned a BA from the University of Washington, and his law degree from the University of California – Hastings College of the Law. A former competitive distance runner (pre-kids!), Rob is a Qualifier-Finisher-Survivor of the 2013 Boston Marathon.