'A Great Partner in the Community'
Oklahoma pastor who had run-in with FBI in late ’90s to be honored by Director and agent who once pursued him
FBI Oklahoma City Special Agent in Charge Edward Gray presented Thaddeus Black with a certificate in February acknowledging his 2023 Director's Community Leadership Award. Black is pastor of Tulakes Community Church in Bethany, Oklahoma.
When a former prisoner-turned-pastor walks across the stage this week at FBI Headquarters to receive a Director’s Community Leadership Award, the head of the FBI’s Oklahoma City Field Office—the same agent who arrested him 26 years ago—will be there cheering him on. The April 19 ceremony will bring full-circle the unlikeliest of journeys for both of them.
Special Agent in Charge (SAC) Edward Gray was a relatively new agent in 1998 when he led a joint investigation into an elaborate drug operation in the small town of Guthrie, north of Oklahoma City. The investigation involved hundreds of state and local police and FBI task force officers who spent weeks surveilling multiple subjects, including Thaddeus Black, who was at the top of the drug organization.
The operation sent Black and his accomplices to prison. Gray received a Director’s Award in 1998 from former Director Louis Freeh for his work bringing down Black and his organization.
Fast forward to present day, Gray on Friday will be present when Director Christopher Wray presents Black—now a pastor with a thriving ministry—with the Director’s Community Leadership Award for his efforts to keep kids on a straight path and for helping to bridge the gap between his community and FBI Oklahoma City. Each year, the Bureau’s 56 field offices select community leaders to honor and invite them to Washington, D.C., to receive their award from the FBI Director.
“He’s a great partner in the community for us,” said Gray. “I consider him a good friend of the Bureau.”
“I just knew that my life today was not like my life yesterday.”
Thaddeus Black, pastor, Tulakes Community Church
How the pair reconnected more than two decades after first meeting on opposite sides of the law is a story they both say strains credulity.
“You can't make these things up,” said Black, who spent nearly 12 years in prison after his arrest and conviction. He’s now pastor of Tulakes Community Church in Bethany, Oklahoma, about 10 miles northwest of Oklahoma City.
“It’s a pretty amazing story,” said Gray, who worked in Arkansas, Trinidad and Tobago, and Washington, D.C., before returning to Oklahoma City two years ago as special agent in charge.
Were it not for a few moments of grace, their story might have ended in 1998. Black was well into his 15-year prison sentence when he began to lose hope. In a phone call with his mother, he said he wasn’t sure he wanted to go on. “But my mom had a different agenda,” he said. His mother said she loved him and that God loved him.
The conversation, he said, “stopped him in his tracks” and set him on the road that would eventually lead to his pastoral work. But it was a long and winding road.
FBI personnel and kids shoot baskets on a hoop attached to a bus operated by Tulakes Neighborhood Ministries. The bus is a frequent presence at the ministry's community events.
While still in prison, he spotted a young new inmate and took him under his wing.
“He saw my son and said, ‘Man, there’s a boy right there that looks like a deer in the headlights,’” said Gary Pitcock, who would later become close friends with Black. Pitcock’s son served his short sentence and told Black to stay in touch. After Black finished his prison sentence, he reached out “looking for a hand up, not a handout.”
Pitcock eventually hired Black at his car lot, first with odd jobs and later sales, where he flourished. Pitcock invited him to his church, First Church of the Nazarene in Bethany, where Black would later share a testimonial about his life, his time in prison, and his spiritual awakening there. That’s where Pitcock’s friend and fellow congregant Rick Raines heard Black’s story. The tale’s contours sounded unbelievably familiar to Raines, a now-retired FBI special agent who had worked with Gray on the Thaddeus Black investigation more than two decades ago.
“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, you’ve got to be kidding,’” said Raines. “The next time I was at church I came up behind him and said, ‘Thaddeus, you’re not going to believe this. I was on the surveillance team that followed you around for months in Guthrie. Can you believe that?’”
“It was such a blessing behind it, though,” said Black. “I just knew that my life today was not like my life yesterday.”
Raines and Black became friends in and out of church. The retired agent later nominated Black—who had earned a pastor’s license—to become an ordained minister in his church. Two other special agents on Raines’ surveillance team attended Black’s ordination ceremony.
Today, Pastor Black leads Tulakes Neighborhood Ministries, which includes the church, a food pantry, and a free clinic. A bus with a basketball hoop attached is often seen at its community events.
Two years ago, when Raines learned that Edward Gray would return to Oklahoma City as special agent in charge, he saw a full-circle moment at hand. He contacted Gray to let him know Black was now a pillar of the community just a few miles from where he’d been arrested long ago.
“I was like, ‘Can you believe this? This is amazing,’” Raines said. “Then Ed was like, ‘We need to get Thaddeus hooked up with our community outreach program so we can do some things together.’”
Last August, FBI Oklahoma City’s Community Outreach Program was invited to set up a booth at the Tulakes Bash, a community event sponsored by Black’s ministry. SAC Gray said Pastor Black provides a valuable connection to the community.
Members of Thaddeus Black's congregation cheered when the pastor received news during a youth night event at his church in February that he was a recipient of the 2023 Director's Community Leadership Award.
“He’s been able to help us get into communities we had a hard time getting into,” Gray said. “If I needed someone to kind of vouch for the FBI, having him as a friend, I think he would do that.”
FBI Community Outreach Specialist Veronica Magrath played a role in nominating Black for the Director’s Community Leadership Award. She said hundreds of people attended last summer’s outreach event and met with FBI staff up close and personal. A little girl told her mom that “the police lady” Magrath was her friend now.
“I realized the impact the relationship between Pastor Black and the FBI has on that community,” Magrath said. “There is no way to measure in numbers, but I can tell you had Pastor Black not been the one to open his arms and partner with us, the community would not have had the same response as they have had following his lead.”
Retired Special Agent Raines echoed those remarks. He said the community where Black has his ministry is poor and underserved. But he’s always out helping and setting an example for kids who may be running the streets like he did.
“He just has a trust that he built and can tell them—with his background and what he did—it's not the way to go,” Raines said. “And they see him there working alongside law enforcement, and the FBI in particular, and it shows them that that’s not something for them to fear if they make the right choices in their life.”
“He’s a great partner in the community for us.”
Edward Gray, special agent in charge, FBI Oklahoma City
