{"id":34713,"date":"2022-10-03T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-03T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/?p=34713"},"modified":"2022-10-03T15:36:18","modified_gmt":"2022-10-03T19:36:18","slug":"34713","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/tartan-news\/2022\/10\/03\/34713\/","title":{"rendered":"Sinclair hit the jackpot with the chief of police."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Last month as part of Sinclair\u2019s diversity series, a conversation with Sinclair\u2019s director of safety and chief of police, Thomas Thompson, was held at Sinclair\u2019s Smith Auditorium. An in-person dialogue to find out who he is, what he believes regarding policing, and how his firsthand experiences impact his view of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Thomas Thompson, Chief of Police at Sinclair Community College.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Thompson walked onto the stage with Michael Carter, Sinclair\u2019s Chief Diversity officer. Both men sat in comfortable chairs facing the audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The backdrop behind them were rotating pictures of Thompson\u2019s family on a large screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carter began by explaining the uniqueness of Thompson\u2019s family. The fact that his son is Black and has been a great high school, college, and pro basketball player. Romaine Sato helped give Thompson insight into racial views in America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTom\u2019s outlook is refreshing, and his passion is apparent.\u201d explained Carter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sinclair Hires New Chief of Police<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thompson credits his parents for his diverse outlook in life and the way they raised him. He also credits the experiences he has had with his children. Thompson explains that his wife Vicki is a strength in his life. Without her, he would not have been able to achieve the things he has. Even though Romaine can speak five languages, he could not speak English at that time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor over two years Vicki stayed up every night until 2 or 3 a.m. helping Romaine study and learn the English language,\u201d he said, \u201cWe were young, Vicki was only 26 years old, and we had two small children at that time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The majority of Thompson\u2019s career has been in law enforcement. Recently he had been working with the Dayton police department on the recent reforms they have made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cI want transparency in policing, a few are grumbling about that, but most police officers are good people they welcome the needed change.\u201d Thompson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe best part of this job is the ability to interact with someone, be kind, show empathy, show them a better way. You have the power to change someone\u2019s life. It is incredible!\u201d said Thompson<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Chief of Police Thomas Thompson greeting some of the audience members before they entered the auditorium.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Thompson is also the founder and executive director of a non-profit organization called Valens Solutions<\/a>, which helps to secure employment, education, health insurance, and much more for the underserved and immigrant community. They help those unable to navigate the systems required to obtain the assistance or programs needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He explained how through the non-profit, two of the recent recipients of scholarships graduated from the police academy. One recipient is from Ghana, and the other is from Rwanda. Both are now officers at Sinclair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When asked about his experience at Sinclair so far, \u201ceverybody at Sinclair loves the police,\u201d said Thompson. \u201cThe police officers are welcomed and respected on campus.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thompson encourages interaction between the police and the students. With mutual respect, the police are there to help you and not hurt you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Clarion extends a big thank you to you Thomas Thompson, we are fortunate to have you as part of the Sinclair family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information on the Sinclair Police Department, contact the Sinclair Department of Public Safety<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diane Sikora <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Managing editor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last month as part of Sinclair\u2019s diversity series, a conversation with Sinclair\u2019s director of safety and chief of police, Thomas Thompson, was held at Sinclair\u2019s Smith Auditorium. An in-person dialogue to find out who he is, what he believes regarding policing, and how his firsthand experiences impact his view of the world. Thompson walked onto […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10416,"featured_media":34715,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5528,5505,3603,3],"tags":[5564,5235,764,925,2393,5565],"class_list":["post-34713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","category-sinclair-faculty-and-staff","category-society","category-tartan-news","tag-chief-of-police","tag-diane-sikora","tag-diversity","tag-police","tag-sinclair-events","tag-thomas-thompson"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/5309411C-DA09-495B-B8C7-C4AA537A2AF7-scaled-e1664755604294.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s5s3vR-34713","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10416"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34713"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34732,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34713\/revisions\/34732"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}