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Inside Threat Assessment: Insights from the U.S. Secret Service and Local Experts
Inside Threat Assessment: Insights from the U.S. Secret Service and Local Experts
Date: Dec. 12, 2025
Time: 9:00am- 3:30pm
Place: WPH, University of Washington Tacoma
This in-person practitioner-oriented training will focus on best practices for threat assessment and school safety. Experts from the U.S. Secret Service's National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) and Washington schools will share strategies to address targeted violence, drawing on their multidisciplinary experience in education, law enforcement, social work, and public safety. The presentations will provide detailed information on the latest research and in-depth case studies to highlight key threat assessment themes and management strategies to support schools and communities in preventing future attacks.
It will be open to the UW community and the larger public. This event is free for attendees, though a suggested donation of $25 to the VPTRC is greatly appreciated. Morning refreshments and a light lunch will be provided.
OSPI Clock Hours
We have been approved by the Washington Office of Superintendent Public Instruction PESB as a Clock Hour Provider for 2025-26. Registrants will be emailed if they are interested in claiming clock hours the week prior to the event. Questions? Email us at vptrc@uw.edu.
Featured Speakers
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Kristy Domingues
Kristy Domingues is a Supervisory Social Science Research Specialist with the U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC). In her current position, Kristy conducts research and training in the field of targeted violence and threat assessment. Kristy also manages NTAC’s Consultation Program, providing feedback on threat assessment programs, policies, and operational procedures, as well as complex threat cases.
Prior to joining NTAC, Kristy served as a policy analyst for a federal community corrections agency. Kristy was responsible for policy and program development, and providing case management, risk assessment, motivational interviewing, and cognitive-behavioral-skills training to federal probation and parole officers. In this role, Kristy developed and facilitated an executive leadership education program. Kristy has 10 years of prior front-line law enforcement experience, starting her career as a federal community supervision officer, and later serving as a supervisory community supervision officer. Kristy holds a Master’s Degree in Criminal Justice from the University of Cincinnati and a Bachelor’s Degree in Criminology & Criminal Justice from the University of Maryland.
Arlene Macias
Arlene Macias is a Domestic Security Strategist (DSS) for the U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC), where she collaborates with community safety partners to facilitate NTAC’s trainings, consultations, and bolster the awareness and education of NTAC’s resources related to domestic security and targeted violence prevention. She provides NTAC briefings and assists with policy and complex threat assessment consultations. Ms. Macias is regionally stationed at the U.S. Secret Service Los Angeles Field Office and her area of responsibility includes six western states.
Ms. Macias has over 30 years of experience with the Secret Service, which began in the Los Angeles Field Office, where she provided support in counterfeit, financial crimes, forgery, background investigations, and protection functions before transferring to Washington, D.C. in 1998. While in D.C., she served as the Staff Assistant for the Office of Professional Responsibility. During her assignment in the Office of Professional Responsibility, she was responsible for planning, directing, and coordinating the inspection and internal security of all Secret Service field, protective, and headquarter offices and employees to appraise the effectiveness of operations, assess the quality of management and supervision, and determine adherence to Secret Service policies, regulations, and procedures. She also provided support in special investigations and surveys involving the agency’s role in major criminal cases, protective functions, and employee misconduct.
Ms. Macias received her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Southern New Hampshire.
Leon Covington
Leon Covington is a licensed mental health clinician working as a Threat Assessment Coordinator/Licensed Clinical Social Worker Program Supervisor at NEWESD 101 in Spokane, Washington. In 2018 Leon was hired to train school districts in Spokane County on the implementation of the Salem-Keizer/Cascade Threat Assessment model. Leon was one of 10 national recipients of the 2019 Kaiser Permanente Thriving Schools Honor roll for K-12 equity-based threat assessment program implementation. Leon chairs the Spokane Regional Level 2 Threat Assessment Team of multidisciplinary professionals. Leon has 34 years of experience working in arenas such as adolescent/adult behavioral health, family preservation services, juvenile detention, adult probation, school and community-based family advocacy, child welfare system and clinical/medical social work. Leon has consulted on over a hundred threat assessments since 2018 and is considered a practice leader by various local and statewide stakeholders. Leon has been a member of the Association of Threat Assessment Professionals (ATAP) since 2018.
Dr. Eric Madfis
Eric Madfis, Ph.D., is a Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Washington Tacoma, where his research focuses on the causes and prevention of school violence, hate crime, and mass murder. He also serves as Director of the Violence Prevention and Transformation Research Collaborative. As a recognized expert on school and mass shootings, he has spoken to audiences across the country and around the world about his research, including to the United States Congress and the Washington State Legislature. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from Northeastern University in Boston, where he was a Research Associate at the Brudnick Center on Violence and Conflict. He often teaches courses on Criminological Theory, Sociology of Deviance and Social Control, Criminal Homicide, Juvenile Justice, and Diversity and Social Justice.
