An unusual roadside scene on Paper Mill Road has cost a veteran Mobile police officer her job. According to disciplinary records filed with the Mobile County Personnel Board, Officer Cynthia Thomas was dismissed in November 2014 after she twice tried to load fallen tissue paper into her vehicles at the site of a traffic crash she had responded to while off duty.
The incident traced back to the afternoon of Oct. 2, when a train and a tractor-trailer hauling tissue collided, scattering paper across a stretch of Paper Mill Road. Around 5 p.m., Thomas arrived at the scene in her city-issued patrol vehicle even though she was not working at the time, records show.
“Once on the scene, Officer Thomas started to load the Scott tissue paper into her city issued vehicle,” the charge sheet from the Mobile Police Department’s Administrative Discipline Unit stated. A supervisor, Sgt. Michael Williams, ordered her to empty the vehicle. She complied and left, but returned later in her personal SUV and began packing more of the tissue into the back.
According to the department, Thomas stopped only after being told that an insurance adjuster was recording her removing the paper. An internal board later found her guilty of violating the law enforcement code of ethics, failing to obey a direct order, and conduct unbecoming an officer. She was dismissed on Nov. 12 after more than two decades on the force and did not appeal the decision.
It was not the first time the department had moved to dismiss Thomas, who joined the force in 1992. In January 2003, an internal trial board found her guilty of four major violations tied to an incident at the Greater Gulf State Fairgrounds the previous October. Records said she sold used tickets to two people while working in uniform at the fair.
Thomas appealed that ruling and appeared before the Personnel Board in June 2003. She testified that she had gotten in line to buy tickets for her daughter before the fair opened, and that a man ahead of her offered to sell two tickets at a discount. She said her daughter later changed plans, so she resold the tickets to another pair, who then discovered the tickets had already been used.
The Personnel Board concluded that police had proved the ticket sale, but noted it appeared to be her first infraction since her hiring. “The examination of her record reveals that she has been a good officer,” the board wrote. It reduced her dismissal to a six-month unpaid suspension, and she returned to duty in July 2003.
Her record also included a high point. In 2001, Thomas received a commander’s citation after helping to apprehend an armed man at a downtown club. “Your actions took an armed criminal from the downtown area and possibly prevented a violent act,” wrote Maj. Richard Barton, then the commander of the First Precinct. Police declined to comment publicly on her latest dismissal.