2025 SPEAKERS

On September 28, 2016, Molly Hudgens, a school counselor in Pleasant View, Tennessee, averted a school shooting when a fourteen-year-old eighth grader, armed with a semi-automatic handgun and an additional magazine of ammunition, came to her in the counseling department at Sycamore Middle School with a plan to harm people on their campus. He told her, “I think you’re the only person who can talk me out of this.” After ninety minutes of talking and ultimately praying with the young man on her knees beside him, Hudgens was able to convince the student to relinquish the weapon to her with no shots fired and no lives lost. As a result of her intervention, Hudgens became a 2017 recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society’s Citizens Honor for a single act of heroism.

Captain Todd Hill is a thirty-year veteran of the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office, serving as the Commander of the Homeland Security, Wellness & Professional Development (HSWPD) Division.  Captain Hill oversees the Training Unit, Force Analysis Unit, Crisis Response Unit, Recruiting & Retention Unit, Accreditation, the Peer Support Team, the Comfort K9 Program and is K9 Cali’s Handler.  Captain Hill implemented the agency’s CIT (Crisis Intervention Team) program in 2015 and the agency’s Peer Support Team in 2017.  

Captain Hill was the Incident Commander at the agency’s Line of Duty Death in 2017 and the Incident Commander for the 2021 Oxford High School Mass Casualty Shooting.

Comfort K9 Cali is a three-year veteran of the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office, assigned to Captain Todd Hill, helping to oversee the Homeland Security, Wellness & Professional Development (HSWPD) Division.  K9 Cali is a member of the agency’s Peer Support Team, responding to officer involved shootings, officer injuries, and other critical incidents.  K9 Cali is on Instagram (@deputy.cali) and Facebook (Deputy Cali).

The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office Comfort K9 Unit is comprised of 15 Cavalier King Charles Spaniel K9’s The Cavalier breed was chosen due to their personality traits (affectionate with families, good temperament with young children, and good temperament with other dogs).  Trained in basic obedience and therapy canine training, the unit is designed for both the first responders and the community.  Comfort K9’s are deployed in different areas of the agency to reach as many people as possible; assigned to patrol, school resource officers, community liaison officers, dispatch, special units, and the Peer Support Team.

Matthew Harland is an adjunct professor of Criminal Justice at Moraine Valley Community College and is an actively serving police officer with the Oak Lawn Police Department, where he serves as a Use of Force instructor, Field Training Officer, and Special Response Team Squad Leader. He is the President of Metropolitan Alliance of Police Chapter #309, and teaches active threat response to first responders and educators. He has incorporated mental health and mental wellness practices into the department's curriculum to shift the narrative and move the culture of first responders to one that is accepting of the realities of the profession's impact on its practitioners.

Rick Eaton is the Director of Research at the Simon Wiesenthal Center. As Co-Director of the Center’s Digital Terrorism and Hate Project he has supervised the production of all 25 editions of the Digital Terrorism and Hate interactive report. Rick regularly meets with Facebook, Twitter, Google/YouTube and other social networking companies to give feedback and assist in shaping policy. Rick has worked extensively with California P.O.S.T. (Peace Officer Standards and Training) and been a subject-matter expert on 11 educational “Tele-Courses” produced by P.O.S.T. and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Rick has twice testified in Congressional hearings and participated in many briefings on Capitol Hill. In his 37 years with SWC he has conducted hundreds of training sessions with law-enforcement, educators, civic groups, and schools.