UCLA police chief resigned after being criticized for security lapses that led to protest violence
UCLA Police Chief John Thomas, who was criticized for serious security lapses and a failure to protect students during melees at a pro-Palestinian encampment last spring, has resigned from the school, the UCLA Police Department said late Wednesday. position.
Thomas’ last day at UCLA will be Tuesday, the UCLA Police Department said in a post on social media platform X. UCLA Police Chief Scott Scheffler will serve as interim police chief until a permanent police chief is selected, the post said.
The post did not specify whether Thomas resigned voluntarily or was fired. Vice Chancellor Rick Braziel, who oversees the newly created Office of Campus Safety, notified Thomas after the melee that he would be reassigned while internal and external investigations examine campus safety deficiencies. During violence in early May, UCLA students and others involved in a protest camp had to defend themselves against attackers for three hours before law enforcement officers stepped in to quell the unrest.
Basile declined to answer questions Wednesday about whether Thomas was fired and said he had no statement.
Thomas could not be reached for comment. In May, he told The Times that he “did everything I could” to provide security and keep students safe during a week of clashes that beleaguered UCLA.
He said he advised leadership from the beginning not to allow camping because it would violate the campus’s rule against overnight camping, and he worried it could cause problems as he assessed other protests sweeping the country.
He said university leadership decided to allow the tents “as a demonstration of students’ First Amendment rights” and directed police not to be included in any security plans. He also told the Times that he developed a plan that relied on private security and made sure to alert the LAPD that if something went wrong, it needed to respond immediately. Thomas said he provides campus leadership with daily updates on the situation, resource levels and response options, and assigns roles to those deployed.
But an independent review released by the University of California last month found that UCLA failed to protect students because of a “highly chaotic” decision-making process, a lack of communication between campus leaders and police and other shortcomings that paralyzed the institution.
The review, conducted by a national law enforcement advisory body, found that UCLA had no detailed plan for handling major protests, even though problems were “reasonably foreseeable” because encampments on other campuses have sometimes led to violent clashes. Campus police had no effective plan for working with outside law enforcement and failed to take command the night of the melee, leading the Los Angeles Police Department and California Highway Patrol to develop a makeshift response.
The review recommends how to address future responses to campus disturbances or emergencies. UCLA has begun to address these deficiencies by overhauling UCLA’s security and safety operations.
