Gwyn "Jocko" Thomas (August 16, 1913 – May 5, 2010) was a crime reporter with

CFRB CFRB (1010 AM) is a commercial radio station in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is owned by Bell Media and carries a News/Talk radio format. Its studios and offices are in the Entertainment District at 250 Richmond Street West. One of the oldes ...

and the ''

Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and part of Torstar's Daily News Brands (Torstar), Daily News Brands division. ...

''. Born in

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

, Thomas began his news career as a newsboy at the corner of Bathurst Street and

Bloor Street Bloor Street is an east–west arterial road in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Bloor Street runs from the Prince Edward Viaduct, which spans the Don River (Ontario), Don River Valley, westward into Mississauga where it ends at Central Parkway. East ...

in 1925. After one year of high school, Thomas was hired by the ''

'' as a

copyboy A copy boy is a typically young and junior worker on a newspaper. The job involves taking typed stories from one section of a newspaper to another. According to Bruce Guthrie, the former editor-in-chief of the ''Herald Sun'' who began work there ...

in 1929. He worked his way as a general reporter in the early 1930s to becoming the paper's crime reporter by 1939. In the 1960s, Thomas entered a new medium by becoming a radio crime reporter on

. Thomas' career involved covering the minor criminal activities in Toronto's suburbs, but also famous criminal stories: * Christie Pits race riots in 1933. * Stanley Buckowski on death row at California's

San Quentin prison San Quentin Rehabilitation Center (SQ), formerly known as San Quentin State Prison, is a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison for men, located north of San Francisco in the unincorporated place of San Quentin in ...

(1951); and execution 1952. *

Boyd Gang The Boyd Gang was a notorious criminal gang based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, named for member Edwin Alonzo Boyd. The gang was famous in the media at the time because of their actions, which included bank robberies, jail breaks, relationships wit ...

Widely remembered for his unique sign-off at the end of his live radio news reports: "This is Jocko Thomas of The Toronto Star reporting to CFRB... from police headquarters." Retired in 1989, Thomas died at a long-term care facility in

North York North York is a former township and city and is now one of the six administrative districts of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located in the northern area of Toronto, centred around Yonge Street, north of Ontario Highway 401. It is bounded by ...

at the age of 96.

Awards

National Newspaper Awards The National Newspaper Awards () are prizes awarded annually for the best work in Canadian newspapers. Synopsis The awards were first given in 1949 by the Toronto Press Club, which ran the awards until 1989. They are now given by an independent ...

(3) * local police reporting awards (9) * member of the Canadian News Hall of Fame (1995)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thomas, Gwyn 1913 births 2010 deaths Canadian newspaper reporters and correspondents Canadian radio reporters and correspondents Mass media people from Toronto Crime journalists