Northeast TTA Team
Edward A. Flynn
Edward A. Flynn is an expert in violence reduction, strategic planning, sustainability, law enforcement operations, place and offender-based tactics, and public safety partnerships. Prior to his current role at CNA, Flynn was appointed Chief of Police in Milwaukee in January 2008. He was formerly Police Commissioner in Springfield, Massachusetts from 2006 to 2008. As the chief police executive, he was responsible for 470 officers and 100 civilians, serving a city of 155,000 residents. Flynn served as Secretary of Public Safety under Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney from January 2003 until he took command in Springfield. Prior to his appointment as Secretary of Public Safety, he served for five years as the chief of police in Arlington, Virginia. In that capacity, he was instrumental in the recovery effort at the Pentagon after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack.
Flynn served on the Board of Directors of the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Police Executive Research Forum. He also chaired the Legislative Committee of the Major Cities Chiefs Association. He was a member of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Executive Session on Policing and a 1999 recipient of the Police Executive Research Forum’s Gary Hayes Memorial Award for Emerging Police Leaders.
Chief Flynn was inducted into the George Mason University Evidence Based Policing Hall of Fame and received the Robert Peel Award for Evidence Based Policing from Cambridge University in 2015. In May 2016, he received the Police Executive Research Forum’s annual Leadership Award recognizing his career achievements. In 2017, the FBI National Executive Institute Alumni awarded him its Penrith Leadership Award. In 2018, the Major Cities Chiefs Association presented him a special recognition award for his contributions to the police profession.
Flynn has a Master of Arts in criminal justice from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. He also earned a Bachelor of Arts in criminal justice from LaSalle University in Philadelphia.
Alexa Blondin
Alexa Blondin is a research specialist in the Center for Justice Research and Innovation (JRI) within the Institute of Public Research at CNA. JRI works throughout the justice system, providing training and technical assistance, conducting research, and supporting organizational reform in agencies and jurisdictions across the country. Ms. Blondin has expertise in a diverse set of criminal justice and law enforcement topics and particular interest in community-police relations and violent crime reduction.
Ms. Blondin currently supports four Smart Policing Initiative (SPI) sites across the country in various stages of their initiatives, coordinating with each law enforcement agency to identify unique TTA opportunities that will aid the site in its goals. Ms. Blondin works with two Justice Reinvestment Initiative sites as well as fifteen US Attorney’s Offices (AOs) through the Project Safe Neighborhood program (PSN); she provides logistical and statistical support as needed, maintains their training and technical assistance, and facilitates regular communication between partners. Ms. Blondin is currently serving as an analyst on the National Institute of Justice’s (NIJ) Police Response to Civil Disturbances project and assisting with qualitative coding.
Ms. Blondin previously worked as an analyst on CNA’s Project on American Justice and helped collect information on the topics presented at the project’s executive session. Ms. Blondin also served as an analyst on CNA’s Collective Healing Strategies project and assisted with gathering information on collective healing strategies for communities impacted by violence and trauma and the various models used to evaluate the effectiveness of these strategies and helped develop overview documents. Ms. Blondin holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology and criminal justice.