Sammie Wicks works as an Interventions Manager for Moonshot, where he leverages experiences at the intersection of public safety, public policy, and public health. Before joining Moonshot, Sammie spent 13 years in public safety serving as a law enforcement officer in Tennessee and Colorado, working as a patrol officer, investigator, co-responder, and targeted violence and terrorism prevention practitioner. Sammie’s public safety career also included him working as a Senior Program Manager at the National Policing Institute’s Center for Targeted Violence Prevention.
Sammie has worked in diverse communities across the United States, building violence prevention networks and programs. Sammie has expertise in mental health crisis intervention and response, multidisciplinary violence prevention, behavioral threat assessment, community outreach, and partnership building.
Sammie has previously served as a Data and Research Task Force member on the Colorado Governor’s Human Trafficking Council. Sammie also serves as a Colorado Preventing Targeted Violence team and an adjunct criminology professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver.
Sammie’s research focuses on transnational organized crime in diaspora communities, terrorist propaganda, and violent social movements. He holds an M.A. in International Security with a Middle Eastern and North African Religious and Political Thought specialization from the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. He also holds a B.A. in History from Rhodes College.
It is a tragic reality that hateful ideology has found fertile ground online and offline, with consequences affecting not only Americans but people around the world. We cannot stand idle in the face of bias, bigotry, and extremism. Together, at the Eradicate Hate Summit and beyond, the collective will of individuals and organizations is needed to galvanize all people of good will to protect and defend our communities.
