LOS ANGELES – UCLA Police Department Chief John Thomas has left his job after drawing criticism for serious security lapses and failing to protect students during a melee at a pro-Palestinian encampment, the university announced Wednesday.
“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,” the campus’ X page reported.
Rick Braziel, associate vice chancellor who heads the newly created Office of Campus Safety, told Thomas he would be reassigned after a melee with protesters on campus. At the same time, internal and external investigations examined campus security shortfalls, the Los Angeles Times reported.
During the violence in early May, UCLA students and others involved in the protest encampment had to fend for themselves against attackers for three hours before law enforcement moved in to quell the disturbance.
The post did not specify if Thomas had been fired or stepped down voluntarily.
Thomas told The Times in May that he did “everything I could” to provide security and keep students safe during a week of strife that left UCLA reeling.
During the protests, the university allowed protesters to created encampments on campus, which according to The Times, he advised leadership against allowing them.
University leadership, Thomas said, decided to allow the tents “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.
Braziel declined to respond to a question Wednesday about whether Thomas was terminated and said he had no statement, The Times reported.
Thomas could not be reached for comment.
