Board of Directors
Members of the Board of Directors
Fight Crime: Invest in Kids is part of the Council for a Strong America (CSA), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. The CSA Board of Directors includes:
Leroy Baca, Chairman of the Board, Sheriff, Los Angeles County, Calif
Art Acevedo, Police Chief, Austin, Texas
Edward A. Flynn, Police Chief, Milwaukee, Wisc.
Patty Patterson, Retired Police Chief, Sumter, S.C.
David Kass, President, Fight Crime: Invest in Kids
Sandford A. Newman, Founder, Fight Crime: Invest in Kids
R. Seth Williams, District Attorney, Philadelphia, Pa.
Sheriff Leroy Baca, Chairman of the Board
Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office
Sheriff Lee Baca, Los Angeles County
Sheriff Baca commands the largest Sheriff’s Department in the United States with a budget of 2.4 billion dollars. He leads over 18,000 budgeted sworn and professional staff. The Sheriff’s Department is the law enforcement provider to 40 incorporated cities, 90 unincorporated communities, 9 community colleges, and hundreds of thousands of daily commuters of the Metropolitan Transit Authority and the Rapid Rail Transit District. Over 4 million people are directly protected by the Sheriff’s Department. The Sheriff’s Department also protects 58 Superior Courts and 600 bench officers. Moreover, the Department manages the Nation’s largest local jail system housing over 20,000 prisoners.
Sheriff Baca is the Director of Homeland Security-Mutual Aid for California Region I, which includes the County of Orange. Region I serves 13 million people.
Sheriff Baca earned his Doctorate of Public Administration Degree from the University of Southern California. He is a life member of the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, USC Chapter. A strong advocate of education, he developed the LASD University in conjunction with 13 universities where over 950 members of the Sheriff’s Department are enrolled in Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree programs.
Sheriff Baca was elected Sheriff of Los Angeles County in December 1998, and was re-elected in June 2006 for his third term in office. He entered the Sheriff’s Department on August 23, 1965. He served in the United States Marine Corps Reserves.
Austin Police Department
Chief Acevedo has been the Police Chief in Austin since 2008, and is the first Hispanic person selected to the post in the department’s history. With more than two decades of law enforcement experience, he oversees a department that employs approximately 2,000 sworn officers and civilian personnel and has been designated a national model “flagship agency” in its most recent review by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies.
Chief of Police Edward A. Flynn
Milwaukee Police Department
Chief Ed Flynn, Milwaukee Police Department
Prior to his appointment as Milwaukee, Wisc. Police Chief, Ed Flynn served as the Springfield, Massachusetts Police Commissioner and was appointed Massachusetts Secretary of Public Safety by Governor Mitt Romney. In this cabinet-level position, Flynn oversaw 21 state agencies including the Massachusetts State Police and the Massachusetts National Guard. Flynn previously served as a Chief of Police of Arlington County (VA), where he reorganized the police department to facilitate the adoption of a community-based problem-oriented policing strategy.
His early career was spent in the Jersey City Police Department where he was promoted from patrol officer through the ranks of sergeant, lieutenant, captain and inspector. He has served as the Chief of Police in Braintree, Massachusetts where he was credited with modernizing the department, and in Chelsea, Massachusetts, where he helped lead the city out of state-imposed receivership to its designation as an “All American City.”
In 2003, Chief Flynn received the Fight Crime: Invest in Kids’ Champions for Children Award. Chief Flynn is a member of the board of directors for the Police Executive Research Forum and is a recipient of the prestigious Gary Hayes Memorial Award for Police Leadership. He holds an M.A. in Criminal Justice from the City University of New York. Chief Flynn is a graduate of the FBI National Academy, the National Executive Institute and was a National Institute of Justice Pickett Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
Fight Crime: Invest in Kids
David serves as the President of Fight Crime: Invest In Kids and directs their overall operations. Previously, David served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Legislation at the U.S. Department of Housing, managing the agency’s Congressional affairs office.
He also worked on crime and children’s issues as a staff person on Capitol Hill and for several nonprofits. David received his master’s degree from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs and his bachelor’s degree from Amherst College.
Sanford A. Newman, J.D., Founder
Fight Crime: Invest in Kids
Sanford Newman is an attorney and founder of Fight Crime: Invest In Kids. Newman’s interest in fighting and preventing crime began in 1983 when he and his wife were awakened by an intruder crouching between their bed and their newborn daughter’s crib. He has since become one of the nation’s leading experts on what works to prevent crime and violence. Together with former Attorney General Elliot Richardson and other law enforcement leaders, Newman founded Fight Crime: Invest in Kids in 1996, and served as its full-time CEO until 2004. Newman has authored or co-authored numerous reports on the crime prevention impact of gang prevention, bullying prevention, after-school programs, child abuse prevention and early childhood care and education.
Patty Patterson, Retired Chief of Police
Sumter Police Department
After serving in the Sumter Police Department in South Carolina for 20 years, 10 of which she was the chief, Chief Patterson retired in 2011. She was the first female and first African American to occupy that post. During her career, she worked for the State Law Enforcement Division. She is currently serving as Sumter’s public safety and welfare director.
District Attorney R. Seth Williams
Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office
D.A. Seth Williams, City of Philadelphia
On November 3rd, 2009 Seth Williams decisive victory at the polls made history not only in Philadelphia but in the state of Pennsylvania. With more than 75 percent of the vote Seth became the first African American District Attorney in the city of brotherly love and in the entire commonwealth of Pennsylvania.Seth Williams is a true Philadelphia success story. Given up by an unwed mother and placed in foster care, Seth was blessed to be adopted by a devoted and loving family. He grew up in a hard-working West Philadelphia neighborhood, the only child of Imelda Williams and the late Rufus O. Williams who emphasized the importance of community service his whole life.
A proud Philadelphian, Seth’s long list of accomplishments started at a very young age. After graduating from Central High School in 1985, Seth attended Penn State University where he served as President of the Black Caucus and later as President of the Undergraduate Student Government, representing all 57,000 undergraduate students.
From Penn State, Seth was on to law school at Georgetown University, where he graduated with distinction as a Public Interest Law Scholar in 1992. After graduation Seth’s dedication to public service brought him home to Philadelphia, where he joined the District Attorney’s Office.
In the ten years he served as an Assistant District Attorney, Seth was repeatedly promoted, including his appointment as the Assistant Chief of the Municipal Court, where he supervised the 30 newest prosecutors. He also created and led the Repeat Offenders Unit with the goal of reducing the high percentage of crimes committed by repeat offenders. His extensive trial experience includes 37 jury trials, more than 1,500 bench trials and more than 2,500 felony preliminary hearings.
In 2005 Seth was appointed Inspector General of the City of Philadelphia. As Inspector General, Seth was responsible for the investigation of all allegations of corruption, fraud, waste, abuse and employee misconduct among municipal workers and companies doing business with the city. Seth left the position of Inspector General in 2008 with praise from Mayor Michael Nutter for his groundbreaking work as the city’s municipal corruption watchdog. Seth went on to take a position as counsel at the Center City law firm of Stradley, Ronon, Stevens & Young.
Seth continues to serve his community as an educator and volunteer. He is an adjunct professor at Neumann College in the Strategic Leadership Master’s Program and is an adjunct professor and Advisory Board member at Penn State Abington. Seth is also proud to serve his country as a Major in the Judge Advocate General Corps of the United States Army Reserve. Seth is also proud to serve on the boards of several community organizations, including the Catholic Social Services of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, the Overbrook Park Civic Association & Town Watch, St. Cyprian Catholic Church, the St. Martin de Porres Foundation and the West Philadelphia Y.M.C.A.
Seth lives in West Philadelphia. He is the proud parent of three girls: Alyssia, Taylor and Hope.
