Cat Brooks, Executive Director

Cat Brooks is an award winning actress and playwright. In her role as an artivist, she is also the KPFA co-host of UpFront and resident playwright and actress with The Lower Bottom Playaz in Oakland and 3 Girls Theater in San Francisco. As an organizer, she played a central role in the struggle for justice for Oscar Grant, and spent the last decade working with impacted communities and families to rapidly respond to police violence and radically transform the ways our communities are policed and incarcerated. She is the co-founder of the Anti Police-Terror Project (APTP) and the Executive Director of The Justice Teams Network. Cat was also the runner-up in Oakland’s 2018 mayoral election, facing incumbent Libby Schaaf.

Guadalupe Rocio Chávez, Healing Justice Organizer

Guadalupe Rocio Chávez is a queer abolitionist therapist, grower and maker of flower and plant medicine, and the Healing Justice Organizer for JTN. They are currently building out an abolitionist California statewide Healers Network to respond to and create alternatives to state sanctioned violence. Guadalupe has spent the past 8 years training communities and creating healing justice programs for families impacted by carceral state violence. They are most excited about sharing sacred medicine making and earth based rituals as an essential part of Abolitionist movements.

Gabriela Bennett, Personal Assistant to the Executive Director

Gabriela (she/they) is new to the JTN team and so excited to be working with such an incredible team! Originally from New Orleans, they grew up all over the South and Midwest before landing in the East Bay in 2010 and falling in love. A former educator who worked with tiny humans for the better part of a decade - Gabriela is passionate about doing all she can to help be a part of creating the liberated world the babies (and we all) deserve to live in <3

Daniel Ernesto Robelo, Community Organizer

Daniel is a seasoned organizer, policy advocate, and communicator with a passion for social justice. He has been involved in dozens of campaigns to dismantle the punishment-industrial complex at the local, state, and national levels. Outside of work, Daniel enjoys hiking, graphic art, and playing the harmonica. Born in San Francisco, he currently lives in Oakland.

James Burch, Policy Director

James Burch is the Policy Director for the Anti Police-Terror Project and the Justice Teams Network, and the President of the National Lawyers Guild, Bay Area. In 2007, he worked for the Southern Center for Human Rights where he investigated human rights conditions in GA and AL prisons, jails, and court systems. James left in 2009 to study civil rights law at Georgetown. After graduating, James moved to the Bay Area where he worked with the Frisco 500 before joining APTP’s Black Leadership Committee and assuming the role of Policy Director. 

Annie Banks, Network Director 

Annie Banks (she/her) is an organizer, artist, and mama of two, living in the village of Huichin, on Ohlone territories, in East Oakland with her partner. Annie grew up on Lkwungen and WSANEC territories in so-called “Victoria, BC, Canada”. She is the Network Director at the Justice Teams Network and volunteers with the Anti Police-Terror Project as the Director of Fundraising. 

Megan Reed, Grant Writing Coordinator

Megan Reed is a Bay Area native, who has been a grant writer and development director for ten years, with grassroots and start-up non-profits focused on environmental injustice, climate change, educational equity, healing justice and social justice.