Clifford F. Thomas, 98, Retired in 1958 : Officer With LAPD Badge No. 1 Dies

Clifford F. Thomas, a retired officer whose seniority enabled him to wear the Los Angeles Police Department’s Badge No. 1 for many years, is dead.

Thomas was 98 and had retired from the department in 1958, ending a 40-year career.

He was an Indiana native who joined the Police Department in 1918. Six years later he became a member of its elite mounted patrol. The patrol only lasted two years and was primarily used for traffic and parking control, Thomas recalled in a 1981 interview with The Times.

In that interview, done on the occasion of the resurgence of the mounted squad, Thomas said he lost his job on horseback after his sergeant had ticketed a Police Commission member.

“(The member) was so mad he told the sergeant ‘I’ll put every one of you back on foot.’ Well a few days later, we were.”

Resurfaced in 1940s

The mounted unit also resurfaced in the late 1940s but involved only a few horses and riders patrolling Griffith Park and Hansen Dam.

“There were only a couple of people in those, not a whole squad,” Thomas said.

The mounted unit exists today as a group of officers volunteering their horses primarily for crowd control.

Thomas’ sons, Maurice and Edward, were also both longtime department officers. Maurice Thomas, who died in 1980, had a son, Jerry, who for a time was a member of the volunteer mounted patrol.

Other survivors include a third son, Father Sylvester Thomas; nine grandchildren; 11 great-grandchildren, and two great-great grandchildren.

A funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. today at Our Lady of the Rosary Church in Paramount.