John Thomas, the former police chief at UCLA, has left the university. Brittany Hope reports for the NBC4 News at 5 a.m. on Dec. 12, 2024.
John Thomas, UCLA’s former chief of police, has left from the school’s police department in the wake of violence on the campus at a pro-Palestinian encampment in early May.
In a post on X Wednesday night, the UCLA Police Department said Dec. 10 was Thomas' last day with the university. He had been criticized for his oversight of the pro-Palestinian protests on the UCLA campus in spring.
December 10, 2024, was former UCLA Police Chief John Thomas’ last day with UCLA and the UCLA Police Department. UCLA Police Captain Scott Scheffler will serve as interim police chief until a permanent chief is selected. pic.twitter.com/tycsOgTx9L
— UCLA Police Department (@UCPDLA) December 12, 2024
UCLA said that the current interim chief Scott Scheffler will continue with the role until they choose another permanent police chief.
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"It is my hope that the officers you see on campus and the surrounding community, along with our support staff behind the scenes, will provide outstanding customer service. The police department also supports two student operated programs that date back to the 1970’s," Scheffler said in a statement on UCLA's website.
The post did not specify if Thomas had been fired or stepped down voluntarily.
The demonstrations at UCLA became part of a movement at campuses across the country against the Israel-Hamas war. At UCLA, law enforcement ordered in May that over a thousand protesters break up their encampment as tensions rose on campus.
Counter-demonstrators had attacked the encampment and at least 15 protesters suffered injuries. In June, dozens of protesters on campus were arrested after they tried to set up a new encampment.
University leadership, Thomas told the Los Angeles Times, decided to allow a tent encampment "as an expression of students' First Amendment rights" and directed that police not be included in any security plan. He also told The Times he developed a plan that relied on private security and made sure to alert the Los Angeles Police Department of the need to respond immediately should problems arise.
Thomas said he provided daily briefings to campus leadership on the latest situation, the number of resources and the response protocol, and assigned roles for those deployed.
But a University of California independent review released last month found that UCLA failed to protect students because a "highly chaotic'' decision-making process, lack of communication among campus leaders and police,
and other shortfalls led to institutional paralysis, The Times reported.
The review, which was conducted by a national law enforcement consulting agency, found that UCLA had no detailed plan for handling major protests, even as problems were ''reasonably foreseeable'' as encampments at other campuses were drawing at times violent conflict. Campus police had no effective plan to work with external law enforcement and failed to take command on the night of the melee,'' leading the LAPD and the California Highway Patrol to devise an ad hoc response.
Wade Stern, president of the Federated University Peace Officers Association (FUPOA), issued a statement on Thomas' departure. The organization represents more than 250 police officers at ten campuses within the University of California Police Department System.
"The departure of former UCLA Police Chief John Thomas underscores the glaring lack of accountability among UCLA administrators for the disorganized and ineffective response to last spring’s campus protests," Stern said. "Despite a detailed investigation revealing that UCLA PD was deliberately excluded from critical meetings and 'almost entirely uninvolved in decision-making,' no administrators have faced consequences for their failures.
"Law enforcement was left in the dark about the University’s objectives and decision-making processes, while administrators actively obstructed UCLA PD by ordering them to remain out of sight and blocking efforts to prevent students from bringing in barriers and equipment. Shockingly, only former UCLA PD Chief John Thomas faced consequences, while Chancellor Gene Block retired without accountability, and others remain in leadership."
