APD's Chief of Strategic Initiatives, Maris Herold, is married to Dr. Tamara Herold. Tamara has been paid $256,750 in no-bid APD consulting contracts. APD's main crime strategy is a method Tamara and Maris co-developed in Cincinnati. The idea is that police focus on a small hot spot where shootings keep happening, then they go after the nearby places that keep the violence going, like stash houses and shady hangouts. It's a reasonable strategy, though the evidence that this particular version of the hot spot strategy works is still a bit thin. What’s odd is who checks whether it's working in Austin. Robin Engel, a longtime Cincinnati buddy of Maris's. She's been paid $241,750 in part to run "independent evaluations" of APD's crime strategies. Engel and Tamara co-wrote an earlier evaluation of this same method. So the person grading the strategy co-wrote a study of it with the person who created it. Not sure how that can be “independent”? Anyway, City Council approved the Herold and Engel deals retroactively 11-0, apparently without discussion.