Dougherty County Sheriff’s Office mourns loss of veteran officer

ALBANY – The sudden death of Dougherty County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Ted Thomas, who operated a city-county youth program and had worked at three local agencies in a decadeslong career, has left the law enforcement community in shock.

Thomas, 58, died of a heart attack over the weekend, and the Dougherty County Sheriff’s Office will have to “pick up the pieces” with his passing, Sheriff Kevin Sproul said.

“It’s just a tremendous loss to our community, to our agency,” Sheriff-elect Terron Hayes, who is currently the office’s chief deputy, said. “He was my mentor, my big brother. He was an outstanding officer, an outstanding person. This is a dark day.”

Hayes worked with Thomas at the Albany Police Department and later the Dougherty County School System Police Department. For the past 4 1/2 years, Thomas was in charge of the Albany-Dougherty Youth Unit program, which works with young people by providing activities such as summer camps and trips.

“He was a mentor to a lot of people in our community,” Hayes told a reporter on Monday. “This community has lost a great man, and his family has lost a great man, and the sheriff’s office has lost a great man.”

The day before his death, Thomas was at the annual Building Unity in the Community barbecue in downtown Albany. He was gearing up to get ready for the annual Shop With a Sheriff event that takes disadvantaged children on a Christmas shopping spree in December, Sproul said.

The sheriff said he met Thomas after the Great Flood of 1994, when Thomas was with the Albany Police Department, serving as the school resource officer at Merry Acres Middle School. The two received training together through the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to become instructors for the Gang Resistance Education and Training (G.R.E.A.T.) program that was taught in schools around the country.

“We flew all over the country together … Denver, San Francisco, Portland,” the sheriff said. “A few years ago, we had an opening in my youth program and he put in for it and got selected for that job.

“He loved the children of Dougherty County. I never once heard anyone say a bad thing about Capt. Thomas. This is a big, big loss for Dougherty County.”

Special Photo: DCSO