Christy E. Lopez is a Washington Post contributing columnist and a Professor at the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C. She teaches courses on policing and criminal procedure and co-directs Georgetown’s Innovative Policing Program. From 2010 to 2017, Lopez served as a deputy chief in the Special Litigation Section of the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice. She led the division’s group conducting pattern-or-practice investigations of police departments and other law enforcement agencies. She directly led the team that investigated the Ferguson Police Department and was a primary drafter of the Ferguson Report and negotiator of the Ferguson consent decree and helped coordinate the department’s broader efforts to ensure constitutional policing.