Growing and serving at USC: John Thomas reflects on policing culture and justice

A teenager living in South Central not far from USC, John Thomas and his friends had just finished playing basketball. Out of nowhere, three Los Angeles Police Department cars drove toward him and his friends, and officers handcuffed them on the ground and threw them in the back of a police car.

The officers led a woman to the back of the car, where Thomas and his friends sat, and asked her if they were the people who stole her purse. 

“Take a good look, because they fit the description,” Thomas said he remembers the officers saying.

The woman said Thomas wasn’t the one who stole her purse and the police released him. But even today, he thinks back to that event and how his whole life could have changed with “that one false accusation.”

A few years later, Thomas attended UCLA. With a record, he probably wouldn’t have gotten in, he said. Thomas joined LAPD a few years afterward, which he “definitely wouldn’t have” if the arrest had been on his record.

Thomas went on to spend decades working with the LAPD — patrolling the streets he grew up in — before starting with the USC Department of Public Safety in 2006, where he worked for 15 years, nine as chief. Thomas retired Jan. 12; in a Jan. 20 interview with the Daily Trojan, he reflected on his life growing up near USC, his career in law enforcement and the University’s changes throughout his life.

Growing up near USC

Climbing the tree outside Moreton Fig and playing hide-and-seek throughout campus, Thomas said USC and its campus “[opened his] eyes that there was a possibility for [him] to go to college.”

When Thomas took AP classes at Crenshaw High School and needed library books, he used his Doheny Memorial Library card to access the books he couldn’t at school. An open campus without gates or a closing time like today, community members walked around the USC track for exercise where they didn’t “have to worry about being safe.” Thomas also went to the old University Village movie theater, the only movie theater in South Central and the 32nd Street Market, where he bought fresh fruits.

“If it wasn’t for me living and being in proximity to USC, the notion of that I can actually go to college, it would have never registered because nobody in my family had ever gone,” Thomas said. “If you went to high school and graduated, you got a job, and that was a reality for my family.”

At the same time, Thomas said he experienced profiling and unnecessary stops by members of the LAPD in the community and even DPS on campus. During his college years — when he would drive from South Central through Beverly Hills to UCLA — Thomas said he considered it “a good week” if he could go without being stopped on his way to and from school. 

One officer once said to him, “You have no business west of La Brea,” according to Thomas.

But to Thomas, who grew up in the community and remembers the prevalence of gangs and shootings in his neighborhood, USC didn’t play a negative role in changing the area he grew up in. 

“They just don’t know,” Thomas said. “Because if you grew up in the neighborhood, there was a sense of pride. We live near USC.”

Starting in Law Enforcement

Despite his negative experiences with law enforcement and the absence of a “burning desire” to enter the field, Thomas felt its importance was always ingrained in him. Thomas’s grandparents, who were sharecroppers and laborers in the rural south who migrated to California, viewed Black police officers as a “big deal” and “progress,” he said.

“Look at those guys, I’m proud of them,” Thomas’ grandparents would say when they saw a Black police officer.

After graduating from UCLA, Thomas began working at the Police Academy before starting at LAPD and patrolling the streets he grew up in. While he had some “great partners,” Thomas experienced “insensitive comments” and witnessed police misconduct firsthand. 

One day, Thomas and another officer had arrested someone, who began calling Thomas names and insults throughout the car ride. Thomas ignored the chirping, but when they got to the station, his partner “[turned] around and hit him in the mouth.” Thomas reported his fellow officer to his supervisor, and while he said it “ostracized” him for a little, reporting officer misconduct was the “right thing to do.”

“Quickly, it spread. If you do something like that, [I’m] not going to be silent,” Thomas said. “There were partners that said things to people that I said, ‘I’ll never work with you again.”’

Career at DPS

When Thomas joined DPS in 2006, he told his boss he would only stay for two years because of dysfunction within the organization and a lack of systems, training, communication and accountability. But he grew to love the University and DPS, connecting with students, officers and the community — ultimately staying for 15 years.

Since his retirement, Thomas — who recently changed his Twitter handle to “RetiredChiefJT” — said he’s received an outpouring of support over texts and social media from officers, faculty, staff and students. Though he struggles with goodbyes, Thomas said the department is planning “some kind of barbecue” after the current coronavirus surge where he can say goodbye to coworkers. 

Lynette Merriman, associate vice provost for Campus Support and Intervention, worked closely with Thomas, specifically when there was a “crisis” at DPS that involved reaching out to families or campus support. On certain occasions, Merriman said, Thomas picked her up and they’d drive down the 110 Freeway to campus together — each making separate calls to handle issues on campus. 

“It would be rare to find another chief who has pride in this neighborhood, and he does,” Merriman said. “And he has pride in USC. And I think it’s just a great combination to really connect the communities around the issue of pride and care.”

The Community Advisory Board, created to reform DPS, contributed to Thomas’ decision to retire, he said, as he feels confident in the organization’s direction and the Board’s recommendations. Thomas said that leaving now will allow new leadership the opportunity to lead without the “blinders” that come with working at DPS for 15 years. 

“You don’t see the full 360 perspective. You’re limited because you tried this and you ran up to an obstacle, and it didn’t work out,” he said. “That new person may not have those blinders and just see it from a different perspective.”

Still, before and throughout his tenure as chief, DPS has faced criticism from students, including accusations of racism and profiling — some of which have been documented on the @black_at_usc Instagram. There have also been reports of DPS hiring officers with prior misconduct records, including shootings, excessive force and racist comments. Under the Board’s recommendations, officers with misconduct records will no longer be hired by the department.

Thomas said he’s told students who are pushing for further DPS changes that, while progress is needed, there are also real concerns about crime that need to be addressed. 

“My hope is that in light of progress and social justice, people don’t get blinded,” Thomas said. “That it’s one or the other because you can truly have both. You can have a compassionate response to mental health and unhoused individuals.”

He cited the Keck Street Medicine Program, which is dedicated to providing resources and direct care such as medicine and blood tests for people experiencing homelessness, as signs of progress. The program, he said, came through looking at alternatives for “pure DPS response” for issues where it is “not the best entity to handle.”

David Carlisle, the interim DPS chief who served as assistant chief under Thomas, said he plans to follow Thomas’ lead in leading the organization, focusing on communication and transparency. 

“I plan to follow the lead of my predecessor … and [lead] our department in the interim, to work to fulfill our mission, which is to create an environment at USC that’s aligned with the University, President [Carol] Folt and the Community Advisory Board,” Carlisle said. 

Now, Thomas said he plans to start exploring another one of his passions: history, specifically that of early Black L.A. 

“That’s kind of where my next path has taken me,” Thomas said. “Because I’m a history nerd, to write about the history of early Los Angeles and early Black Los Angeles.”

On his last day, Thomas worked from home, attended Zoom meetings and spent time putting flowers on his mother’s gravesite, who passed away in March 2018. With about 34 years of total law enforcement experience, Thomas’ mother — Gertrude Thomas, a single mother to six children -— used to tell him that eventually, he would have to retire. 

Thomas said that it always “hung heavy” on his heart that his mother never got to see him retire, which is why he chose Jan. 12 as his final day: what would have been her 78th birthday.

“When I selected that date, I did a little tribute to her,” Thomas said. “So it was emotional for a couple of reasons and very reflective over the course of 37 years and 15 at DPS and nine as a chief. I think I wasn’t prepared for how emotional it was going to be that day, because I’ve never really given it much thought.”