Gregory A. Thomas

Gregory A. Thomas currently serves as the Senior Executive for Law Enforcement Operations in the Office of the Kings County (Brooklyn, N.Y.) District Attorney, the third largest district attorney’s office in the United States. As a member of the executive staff, he serves as a senior advisor to District Attorney Eric Gonzalez and his executive staff on criminal justice and law enforcement policy and procedures and is the one of the principal office liaisons to the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and other local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies in relation to sensitive investigations and operational matters. He is also charged with the executive management and oversight of the work of the District Attorney’s Detective Investigators Squad, which consists of over 80 detectives who are sworn as police officers under New York State law. In 2014, as a newly hired executive in the office, he played the lead role in the office’s creation of its Crime Strategies Unit, which works closely with the NYPD to reduce the occurrence and frequency of violent crimes in Brooklyn with an approach that focuses resources on the “drivers of violent crime” and the identified “hot spots” where most crime occurs.

Thomas brings to this position over 36 years of supervisory and executive experience in the fields of criminal justice, emergency management and public safety. He has served as Deputy Director of Planning and Response at the Columbia University National Center for Disaster Preparedness; as Executive Director of the Office of School Safety and Planning, with the New York City Department of Education, the largest school district in the United States (a position that he held during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001); as an Assistant Commissioner with the New York City Fire Department; as the Associate Director of the City University of New York/NYPD Cadet Program at John Jay College of Criminal Justice; as a senior investigator and member of the executive staff with the Mollen Commission, the mayoral commission that investigated allegations of police corruption and the anti-corruption procedures of the NYPD; and as a First Deputy Inspector General with the New York City Department of Investigation, the New York City agency charged with investigating and referring for criminal prosecution, cases of fraud, corruption, and other illegal activities by New York City’s over 300,000 employees, contractors and others who do business with the City.

As an internationally recognized law enforcement, campus safety, emergency management expert, consultant and conference speaker, he has been featured in various international media and print venues such as the BBC, C-Span, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, NPR Radio, the New York Times, the USA Today, the U.S. News and World Report, and The Wall Street Journal. His critical investigative work with the Mollen Commission, the mayoral commission that investigated allegations of police corruption and the anti-corruption procedures of the NYPD, is chronicled in the 2023 highly acclaimed Audacy podcast titled “The Set”. His expertise has also led to him being a part of a select group of national law enforcement thought leaders who were invited in July of 2016 to a White House meeting convened and attended by President Barack Obama and then Vice President Joseph Biden to discuss law enforcement and policing best practices after the unusual spate of police involved shootings that occurred in the spring and summer of 2016. He has also testified before the United States House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security, been retained as a senior trainer and consultant to the United States Departments of Education, Homeland Security and Justice and served as a subcommittee member of the congressionally created National Commission on Children and Disasters.

While at Columbia University, Thomas authored and co-authored numerous academic publications and served as the lead editor and co-author of three books on school safety for the Janes Information Group, including the most comprehensive book published to date on school safety – the 450-page Janes Safe School Planning Guide for All Hazards. He is also the solo author of a book from Random House Publishers titled Freedom from Fear: A Guide to Safety, Preparedness, and the Threat of Terrorism, which offers advice to readers on how to prepare themselves and their families for a worst-case scenario like a natural disaster or an act of terrorism.

Thomas’ professional affiliations include membership in the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE), where he served as the 38th National President, and membership in the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), where he served on the advisory board of their Law Enforcement Policy Center (LEPC) which develops and disseminates model policies on all aspects of policing for use by law enforcement agencies throughout the world. He has also been associated with the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA) where he served as an on-site accreditation assessor of various police departments across the nation and currently serves on the Business Advisory Board of the National Policing Institute (formerly known as the National Police Foundation).

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York where he currently resides with his wife Kim and his family, Thomas attended public school in New York City, and then attended college at the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore (UMES), where he received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Sociology. He completed his graduate studies at the Brooklyn Campus of Long Island University where he received a Master of Science Degree in Criminal Justice.