Center for Targeted Violence Prevention and National Policing Institute

Sammie Wicks is a ten-year law enforcement professional who previously worked in various Memphis Police Department roles. Currently, he is assigned to the Aurora Police Department’s Crisis Response Team. He spearheads the agency’s Targeted Violence Prevention Program. Officer Wicks has previously served as a member of the Colorado Human Trafficking Council Data and Research Task Force. He served as speaker and researcher at the University of Denver’s Human Trafficking Center and is currently a board member at the Laboratory to Combat Human Trafficking, leading its policy committee. He is also an independent researcher focused on transnational organized crime in diaspora communities, terrorist propaganda, and violent social movements. His research has been published in Small Wars Journal, The Global Network on Extremism and Technology, The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (The Hague), and The International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (Israel), the African Jihad, and the Institute for Security Studies (Africa). He holds an M.A. in International Security from the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver with a Middle Eastern and North African Religious and Political Thought specialization. He also holds a B.A. in History from Rhodes College.