Clay Higgins

Glen Clay Higgins (born August 24, 1961) is an American politician and reserve law enforcement officer from the state of Louisiana.

A Republican, Higgins is the U.S. representative for Louisiana's 3rd congressional district.

The district, which contains much of the territory once represented by former governor Edwin Edwards and former U.S. senator John Breaux, is in the southwestern corner of the state and includes Lafayette, Lake Charles, and New Iberia.

At age 18, Higgins enlisted in the Military Police Corps of the Louisiana National Guard, serving for six years (1979–85) and reaching the rank of staff sergeant.

He worked for several years as a manager of car dealerships.

In 2004, Higgins became a patrol officer for the Opelousas City police department.

By 2007, police chief Perry Gallow was prepared to take major disciplinary action against Higgins.

In a letter to the city council, he wrote, "Clay Higgins used unnecessary force on a subject during the execution of a warrant and later gave false statements during an internal investigation...although he later recanted his story and admitted to striking a suspect in handcuffs and later releasing him".

Higgins resigned before disciplinary action could be imposed.

Higgins worked for the Port Barre police department through 2010.

In 2011, he joined the St. Landry Parish sheriff's office.

After the office's public information officer was reassigned in October 2014, Higgins was appointed to the position and promoted to captain.

As public information officer, Higgins made videos for the parish Crime Stoppers program.

He first used standard scripts, but began to improvise in his own style, appealing to suspects to surrender and sometimes threatening them by name.

His videos went viral, and in 2015 he was described by national media as the "Cajun John Wayne" for his intimidating persona.

Sheriff Bobby Guidroz urged restraint, advising Higgins to refrain from personal comments about suspects and to keep a professional tone in his videos.

Higgins also made a video for the state police, with a script that prompted protests from suspects' families and the ACLU.

Higgins won the runoff election on December 10, 2016, defeating fellow Republican Scott Angelle.

As well as being an elected official, Higgins continues to hold a law enforcement commission in a reserve capacity with the Louisiana Attorney General's office.

Higgins has appeared and spoken at events organized by fringe, anti-government militia groups such as the Three Percenters and the Oath Keepers, and has claimed to be a "Three Percenter" at speaking engagements.

Higgins is the seventh of eight children.

He was born in New Orleans, and his family moved to Covington, Louisiana, when he was six years old.

The family raised and trained horses.

After graduation from Covington High School, he attended Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, but did not graduate.

In September 2016, during his congressional campaign, Higgins claimed to have resigned from the police force for other reasons, calling Gallow "a peacock, a colorful, flightless bird".

Gallow, by then retired as police chief, publicly disputed Higgins's version of events.

He resigned from the St. Landry Parish sheriff's office in February 2016.

Guidroz had warned him against using disrespectful and demeaning language about suspects, ordering him to "Tone down his unprofessional comments on our weekly Crime Stoppers messages".

He issued a statement saying that Higgins's comments underlined "a growing undertone of insubordination and lack of discipline on Higgins' part".

Guidroz said that Higgins had gone against department policy by misusing his badge and uniform for personal profit and gain, citing Higgins's wearing a uniform in an ad for a security firm.

He also reprimanded Higgins for using his badge and uniform on his personal website to support sales of T-shirts and shot glasses for his limited liability corporation (LLC).

Higgins had also used the department's physical address in registering his corporation with the state.

Both actions were against department policy.

Salon reported that during this period, Higgins "negotiated paid speaking appearances with other police departments. In one email, Higgins discussed his request for a speaker's fee that included shopping money for his wife and part of the fuel for a friend's private plane."

He asked for cash payments.

Higgins also conducted his private business via email on "his government email-account during work hours without the permission or knowledge of his supervisors. Higgins also appears to have attempted to conceal his earnings from the IRS in order to avoid wage garnishment for unpaid taxes. Whether those actions constitute tax fraud is unclear."

Shortly after resigning from St. Landry Parish, in March 2016, Higgins was accepted and sworn in as a reserve deputy marshal in the city of Lafayette, Louisiana.

Reserve forces in city and Parish sheriff's offices in Louisiana receive regular training and are commissioned as law enforcement officers.

They are part-time and made up of persons from many walks of life.

In 2019, Higgins retired his commission as a reserve deputy marshal.