Reggie Thomas, a thirty-year veteran of the Lafayette City Police Department who recently retired, shares his journey of growing up in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, joining the police force in 1990, and how an effective police department works to build trust in the entire community in this edition of Discover Lafayette with Jan Swift.

In the aftermath of the George Floyd killing in Minneapolis, public outcry has caused intense scrutiny of the inner workings of police departments nationwide. Retired Deputy Chief Reggie Thomas is in a unique position to comment on the need for change as he has lived on both sides of the issue: growing up as a black teen in the 9th Ward in New Orleans, he was exposed to rampant neighborhood criminal activity.

Reggie was encouraged to escape his neighborhood by a kind mentor, Melvin, who led Reggie to join the Air Force upon graduation from high school. Reggie expressed special gratitude for Melvin, who took him under his wing, as Reggie's dad had been shot and killed when he was seven.

The traumatic event of his father's murder shaped Reggie's beliefs as to how law enforcement should operate as his family never got closure on his dad's death or learn who may have committed the crime. In fact, the only call ever made to his mother was in the middle of the night informing her of the death, and the promise to follow up with a visit by police never occurred.

Having never left New Orleans, Reggie was amazed at how clean and well-maintained Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio was upon arrival as a new recruit. It opened his eyes as to how the world could be.

After a stint in the Air Force, Reggie returned to New Orleans and worked in corrections with former Orleans Sheriff Charles Foti's office. He remembers the New Orleans police as being "thugs on the street" at that time. There was no diversity in the ranks and Reggie understood why no one would call to report police harassment as "there was no one to call because nobody cared. No one (in a position of power) took it seriously."

He shared an example of how he was mistreated right after he had gotten his badge from the Sheriff's office. Sitting on a porch with a group of his friends, police officers stopped when they spotted the group of young black men. "The police always stopped when they saw a group." Ordered to put their hands on the police car, Reggie explained that they weren't doing anything but talking and that he was an officer himself. When he showed his badge to the police officer, the officer kicked it across the street saying, "You're not a police officer, you're just a corrections officer." Sheriff Foti was quite upset at this incident, but it was representative of a larger problem of brutality for no reason.

Reggie moved to Lafayette with his wife, Lisa, in 1990 when she enrolled at USL. Her brother was a recruiting officer for the Lafayette City Police and he convinced Reggie to join the force. He remembers the department as being professional and respectful of its citizens, but the force was not diverse and black officers were lower in rank. Off-color jokes about race were common and he had to look the other way more often than not.

Reggie Thomas as a young man. He joined the Lafayette City Police Department in 1990 and retired after thirty years of service in May 2020.

His career started off in narcotics which is dangerous work. And the worst case scenario happened on one occasion when he was returning from inter-department work in Patterson LA on an undercover drug deal. Reggie was still on duty, driving back down the highway in an old car and dressed the part of a drug dealer, admittedly speeding. He was stopped by a state trooper and ordered to "Put your hands on the hood!