
Sammie Wicks
Interventions Manager, Moonshot
2022, 2023, 2024
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.

The catalytic power of this Summit in bringing together those who are devoting their lives to pushing back and working to confront, understand and work towards solutions around hate in our society is a noble and difficult task. The Summit not only energized those who attended but led to connecting the dots in a global network of those doing this work. The stories of the victims of hate were painful to witness but their courage in coming forward was inspirational. Those who attended left energized with the hope that by working together solutions can be forged.
