New Aurora police chief hopes to keep positive momentum going

When Matt Thomas started his career as a police officer in the late 1990s, he wanted to be on the streets.

“I always wanted to be a detective. I did not see myself sitting behind a desk,” Thomas said.

But that’s where he finds himself today. Thomas was sworn last month as Aurora’s new police chief and now leads a department that serves and protects Illinois’ second-largest city.

It’s the pinnacle of a 28-year career that started when he decided to take a pass on law school and join the Park Ridge Police Department.

Thomas said his four years in Park Ridge were good experience, but there wasn’t much opportunity to investigate major cases. So when a friend at the Aurora PD suggested he apply there, the Sandwich native listened and in 1997, he made the move to the larger city.

Standout memories

Thomas loved being a detective, where he dealt with the gamut of crime, from bad checks to murder.

He also worked cold cases, and in 2008 helped solve the murder of Cheryl Hall, who in 1981 was found strangled to death in her Aurora apartment. Investigators recovered a used straw discarded by their suspect to retrieve DNA that matched DNA collected under Hall’s fingernails. The suspect later admitted to voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Thomas also recalled working a 1990 missing persons case, in which a husband was accused of killing his wife, rolling her up in a rug and burying it on a horse farm. Although the woman’s body was not found, cadaver dogs detected the scent of human remains when the rug was dug up in 2007. The husband was convicted in 2013.

To the future

Thomas, 49, oversees a department staffed by more than 300 sworn police officers and 100-plus civilian employees.

The department in recent years has increased staffing and focused on modern policing, he said, including instituting a crisis intervention unit that deals with people with special needs or suffering a mental health crisis.

The Aurora PD also has launched a real-time crime information center, improved its collection and processing of digital evidence, and upgraded efforts to safeguard officers’ physical and mental health, Thomas said.

The department also has initiated a program to develop future leaders.

“I want to see (our) momentum continue,” Thomas said.

He acknowledged that after the 2020 killing of George Floyd by police in Minnesota, relations between Aurora police and the community “took a hit.”

One way Aurora addressed that is with My90 surveys. Now, every time someone uses a cellphone to call 911, the city sends a text asking about the quality of service.

Information from those surveys has led to special initiatives, such as a 2024 focus on traffic safety, Thomas said.

“I’m committed to the public safety in this community, because I live here,” he added.

Saying goodbye

Meanwhile, the city said goodbye May 29 to former chief Keith Cross, who retired after 31 years with the department.

Cross was named chief in 2021.

“Thank you, Aurora, for trusting me. Thank you, APD, for shaping me. Thank you all for being a part of this wonderful journey,” said an emotional Cross. “Here’s to the next chapter whatever it may bring.”

Trafficker sentenced

A Northwest suburban man has been sentenced to 24 years in federal prison for running a sex-trafficking operation in South Dakota, authorities said.

Beginning around April 2021, Daniel J. Kubica — AKA Danny Haddreck — of Niles created, organized and maintained the operation that involved several women in and around Rapid City, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.

Kubica, 41, recruited women to engage in sex acts for money, which he then used to fuel his own fentanyl addiction, authorities said.

He committed physical and sexual assaults to coerce the woman, prosecutors said. That included strangling and threatening to kill a victim and her 14-year-old sister, officials said. He also supplied drugs and alcohol to a victim to keep her working for him, when he knew she was addicted to those substances, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for South Dakota.

Kubica pleaded guilty in February to three counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion and one count of money laundering.

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