Lamar Thorpe

Thorpe was born on April 6, 1981, at the Sybil Brand Institute, a woman's jail in Monterey Park, California.[1] His mother was a heroin addict who had been arrested in a carjacking to fund her habit.[1] His mother had intended to have an abortion but was arrested before it occurred.[1] He was raised in East Los Angeles, the only Black child in a Mexican American foster family.[1] As his foster parents spoke mostly Spanish, his English was poor.[1] After high school, he joined the U.S. Navy.[1] After he completed eight years of service, he earned a B.A. in sociology and women's studies at George Washington University.[1] He then accepted a position as director of development at San Jose State University and thereafter the chief advancement officer in the San José-Evergreen Community College District.[1] He currently serves as executive director of the Los Medanos Healthcare District.[1]

In November 2016, he was elected to four-year term on the five-member Antioch City Council and was seminal in the formation of a police reform ad hoc committee.[1] In 2018, he served a one-year term as mayor pro tem under mayor Sean Wright.[2] In November 2020, running on a platform of police reform, he won the election with 45 percent.[1][3] He had won the endorsement of the major Bay Area newspapers and the California Democratic Party; and was opposed by the police union.[1] As mayor, he made it mandatory that police wear body cameras, implemented reforms to "demilitarize" the police force, improved police hiring practices, and established an independent, civilian oversight commission to monitor the police department.[1]