I received this morning but have waited for permission to post it from my source, which I received a short time ago.

This is from a very reliable source inside the southland gang taskforce  re Thomas;

He actually isn't a punk. He is a good kid. What happened is, he was at a
party and some gang bangers killed a guy. He did the right thing and
cooperated with the police and they arrested the murderers. As a result
of his cooperation, the gang bangers put a hit on him and his family. The
hit is credible and they truly fear for their lives. As a result, he shot
up to Oregon and decided to go there to get away from the threat. That is
why he was crying when he made the announcement. He was the kid in the
class that was actively recruiting other recruits to come to USC. He did
us a tremendous favor by recruiting kids to SC and forestalling his
announcement until after we had our 30 guys.

The kid is heartbroken.

I have changed nothing here...just copy and paste. I am offering nothing with respect to any commentary. I am not even going to Tweet it.

Take it for what its worth.