Thomas Says He Doesn’t Trust Politicians
By John Earp
As a service to the voting public, The Jal Record has interviewed the current candidates for Lea County Sheriff. Below is our interview of Michael Thomas.
The Jal Record: What’s your background, where did you grow up, and how did you get in law enforcement?
Thomas: I’m born and raised in Hobbs. I graduated from Hobbs High School. I got to work in the oilfield in the summer before my senior year. Did some roustabout stuff. So, I got some good hard work and labor in early. I hold a respect for those guys out there in the oil patch. It kind of made me decide that maybe I don’t want to mess with the oilfield too much. I really didn’t have too much of an idea. But I graduated and I decided everybody born here has some kind of crazy escape plan when you’re young. You’re like, I gotta get out of here, I’m going to get out of here. Well, I enlisted in the Marine Corps. Kind of like I always kind of wanted to. I didn’t draw it out, just one day, just went and talked to the recruiter, went to MEPS the next day and enlisted. So that was my grand escape plan. I went to military police school in Missouri and then ended up stationed in San Diego at Miramar. I did my whole, whole enlistment at Miramar as military police, and I was garrisoned. So when you’re garrisoned, it’s pretty much like law enforcement. You wear a badge, you wear a vest. You have all the gear, and you go out there and you enforce the rules and the laws and all that stuff. That’s where I got my start in law enforcement. So I did my 4 years of active duty, and right towards the end, before I got out, I applied for Hobbs Police Department. I got out and a couple months later, I got hired on and I worked in Hobbs for about five and a half years. I was patrol the entire time. I did four years with SWAT while I was over there at Hobbs, and my specialty was lethal instructor, and I was the grenadier for the team. After a while, there just, things got a little hectic internally, and I decided to leave, and I went to the sheriff’s office. I’ve almost been here eight years. I worked patrol, and then I promoted through the ranks to go into corporal and then to sergeant. That’s where I’m at right now. I’ve supervised both the patrol and the courts divisions. I did nearly six years of SWAT here, and, uh, five years of that, I was a sniper.
And that’s, that’s, that’s current to where I’m at. I’ve got 17 years of law enforcement experience, and currently, I’m supervising a patrol shift, out there on the street, seeing all the challenges that we deal with in law enforcement, be it, the theft, the drugs, the mental crisis that we’re dealing with, with the people needing help, and our limited resources to combat some of these things, and I get to, that’s just my job, with these calls, and supervise these guys, and make sure we’re doing the right thing, and trying to help people the best we can, and doing it all legally.
TJR: What would you say is your favorite part of being in law enforcement?
Thomas: I’ve always enjoyed SWAT. I love being a SWAT sniper. That was one of my career goals, and it wasn’t easy stepping away from SWAT. I only stepped away from SWAT because of some internal things going on that I don’t agree with. My other favorite thing is, I really enjoyed is after you do so many years in patrol alongside a lot of people, they learn what you’re about, and then you start moving into these supervisory positions, and you get to get the next generation, the young guys come in, and you’re in control of a shift. You have some span of control as to develop the culture on your shift. You’re able to control, like, I wouldn’t say control, like, you’re more able to guide and build leadership skills, build independent thinking. You can guide these guys into that by your leadership approach. You can get these guys to think on their own, make good decisions, encourage them, show them how to find the answers without just relying on a phone call immediately. I mean not that I mind helping them by all means, but I like to develop strong, independent, innovative thinkers, you know? Leadership’s really important. A lot of people like to talk about it, but it’s not implemented. There’s a lot of people that want, you can go to all the trainings in the world. Anyone can learn a job. But leadership skills, actual leadership skills, that’s not something you just read a book and you know how to do now. It’s something you’ve got to work on and practice, and I really enjoyed. I was on one shift for a long time, and I really enjoyed getting to watch these guys grow.
TJR: What would be your least favorite part of being in law enforcement?
Thomas: It’s not even in law enforcement, honestly, my least favorite part isn’t necessarily the job itself. My least favorite part, based on my experiences, between the sheriff’s office and Hobbs, and sometimes in the military, even, is the internal politics. That’s what, I think, almost everybody in law enforcement would agree is their least favorite part, probably.
TJR: Do you have a family?
Thomas: Yep, I have three kids.
TJR; And you live in Hobbs still?
Thomas: Yes, sir.
TJR: What is it that’s made you want to run for sheriff?
Thomas: You know, that was never a career goal. My two career goals was, I really wanted to make Sergeant, and I really wanted to be the SWAT sniper, and, you know, I got to both of those, and I was pretty happy reaching those goals, and I started looking at other goals. I really want to go to a sniper instructor course one of these days. It wasn’t like I’ve always wanted to be a sheriff kind of thing. I don’t care for titles. I don’t care for the benefits, the accolades, the attention. That’s not what I like. That’s not my kind of thing, but it’s to be something I chose to do out of necessity for the agency and for the citizens of Lee County. This is, this is something that I chose to do that will be on me.
TJR: What kinds of changes do you see as needful in the sheriff’s office?
Thomas: This place needs a direction. It hasn’t had one in some time, and this place needs specific changes. Not an insane amount of changes, but it needs small changes for efficiency, for consistency. That is the biggest thing this place lacks out of everything is consistency in anything. Consistency in discipline, consistency, and promotion processes, consistency, and a lot of the things that we do every day. It’s kind of always evolving and depending on the office politics that I don’t like. A lot of those things factor into a lot of the changes and direction this place needs.
TJR: Could you give an example of some of these changes that have been evolving, that you think doesn’t need to be evolving and just needs to be constant?
Thomas: There’s several things. We’ve got to turn this from a self-serving agency, or a one-person-serving agency, or an agency where it’s all about just the titles and this and that. We need to refocus on what matters and that’s, you know, the citizens of Lea County. To do that we need to work on our mentorship program, we need to integrate some actual leadership training and steps to actually build these people that are looking at promoting and even just the deputies in general, just give them extra skills in their pocket. There doesn’t need to be people hoarding information and skills because they look at everybody as a threat. Real leadership, people try to build others underneath them. They teach them everything they know, and, if they pass them up and they keep going over them in promotions and stuff, well, then you’ve done your job. It’s very cloudy when it comes to any kind of actual leadership or when it comes to the mentorship in the job side, it’s very cloudy on what anybody does above sergeant. I mean, your deputies and everybody that you work with all the time know what your responsibilities are, the sergeant. They know what the corporal’s responsibilities, they kind of know some of the captains, but after you pass that, I mean, you don’t know everything the captains do. It shouldn’t be like that. We should all understand how this whole office flows. And then we have the chief deputies and absolutely no one knows exactly what they do. I mean, they have things that they’re over. But we’re not building the generations below us. So we need to be passing on knowledge and skills and leadership principles to those below us. So, for those looking to promote, it would be great to open up some mentorship stuff and actually have a legit mentorship program to develop the people that are looking to promote, to light up the right skills in their mind, you know, these are the things that you should be doing. We want to look for people that can make decisions. We want to look for people that aren’t going to be, yes men. We want people to be able to think on their own. And we need to change the culture. So, we can have discussions without ego and rank getting in the way. And they say a lot of the best ideas come from the people at the bottom of the bucket
And another thing is our accountability. We need to make sure that the whole process is professional and consistent. We don’t have a dedicated internal affairs division here. The internal affairs stuff is, if an investigation comes out, it’s assigned typically to a captain. Then it’s never the same captain, and none of the captains do it the same way. And it’s that there are just so many inconsistencies in that process that it’s detrimental.
TJR: So would you say that instead of meritocracy, where basically you earn your way, it’s favoritism that is how one gets promoted? Does it seem like that to you?
Thomas: There is, definitely. There’s definitely been some incidents where that has obviously played a factor. I have seen some people get away with things or things not being investigated properly because of their relationships with other people in this office, typically above them in one way or another, or friends, stuff. We have to get away from that. The good old boys’ club and the status quo is not good for the environment at the agency. Number one, it kills motivation, it kills trust inside, and as we’ve seen, that system also kills trust with the citizens of this county because we can’t keep out of newspapers. It’s these issues that have to be handled. When it comes to professional stuff, it’s, we hold each other to a higher standard. So when one of us screws up, we don’t sugarcoat it, we don’t play it lightly. We hold each other accountable. We sort out the mess, we have the discussions, and we get things dealt with. You’ve got to be able to put rank and friendships aside and you’ve got to look at the totality of things. It’s not a personal thing. It’s a professional one, and we have to treat everybody, professionally, the same, regardless of your personal beliefs or your feelings towards about people. Right is right and wrong is wrong. You know, trust is earned through transparency.
TJR: What do you see as the top priorities of the sheriff’s department?
Thomas: My priority here is the preservation of life and property. And if it’s not being handled, then we got to do something about it ourselves, too. We have four people in traffic right now, they’re dedicated traffic units. One day, it would be really nice to be able to double that. If we can get people to slow down on these highways, especially in the mornings and evenings, the big rush hour times. It would be nice because we’ve got an unnecessary loss of life happening. We need to prioritize the traffic unit into those high traffic areas.
TJR: If someone were to ask you, ‘Why should I give you my vote?” What would you tell them?
Thomas: Well, start out with a couple things. Why vote for me? I’ve served nearly my whole adult life in law enforcement. I’ve spent many years doing my best to be a leader, and not a manager when I supervise. I’ve earned the respect of the vast majority of law enforcement officers in this county. At least 90% of this agency has my back in this election. I have a history of not being quiet, being the one that’s not afraid to stand up when things are wrong, regardless of the fallout that I face while I’m working, like in the office. You know, I’ve never shied down from standing up for what’s right, and condemning what’s wrong. And I’ve got a pretty good track record of that. You know, I believe in this agency serving its purpose, and its sole purpose is to serve the citizens. You know, it’s not a retirement gig. It’s not a political pedestal. My intent is to put Lea County first. I want to reverse this position from being a political one to one that serves the citizens between all these agencies and get us all working together to better serve the citizens who live here. My loyalty has always been to the citizens of this county, not to the government, not to an agency, not to one man running an agency. We need change. Not including the people that are just going to retire, because they’re going to retire, but depending on the outcome of this election, we stand to lose over 100 years of experience, and easily, probably within a year, depending on what happens with this. I want to keep the experience here at this agency. I want to keep the leaders here at this agency and develop this place into a place that people can trust, where they don’t have to worry about the high school drama, and the newspaper blastings, you don’t have to worry about unethical behavior. I just want an agency that people can trust and lean on and know is going to take care of them in their best interests. This isn’t about me anymore. Never really was. I refuse to be bought and paid for. I’m not going to take favors for your support. If you want to support change, I’m your guy, but I’m not going to take favors.