LAKE CHARLES —That’s blue steel in the stare that Clay Higgins casts into every room he enters.
That’s the low roll of thunder that Higgins emits when he speaks.
Higgins, dubbed the “Cajun John Wayne” for his brash Crime Stoppers videos, gone viral around the globe, embodies the image that matches the moniker — although he is neither Cajun like the people he serves nor towering, like John Wayne.
Nonetheless, his persona embodies the image of a fearless, relentless lawman, although he is no longer paid to be one.
He carries the King James Version to political events, though he stands ready to raise hell.
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Could he be a sheriff? Sure, somewhere. A police chief? You bet.
A U.S. congressman? Well, that’s up to the people of Louisiana’s 3rd Congressional District, which stretches across Acadiana from St. Mary’s rising sugar cane crop in the southeast to shining, emerging liquefied gas plants rising at the Texas line.
Higgins: Candidate from the blue
Barely six months back, no one would have imagined Clay Higgins — Capt. Clay Higgins on the ballot — would run for the U.S. Congress. Higgins was spokesman for the St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office, and his Crime Stopper videos — bombastic and entertaining — traveled the world via YouTube.
Those videos were a mix of bravado — we’ll hunt you down, he’d warn suspected criminals — and Bible thumping —repent and we’ll help you reform, he’d suggest. They also ran headlong into disapproval from groups such asthe American Civil Liberties Union. Higgins later resigned his position after discussions with the sheriff, who he says he still loves and respects.
When television personality Jimmy Fallon showed on his late-night show a Crime Stoppers video of Higgins challenging an as-yet-uncaught burglar at a local store, his New York audience roared with laughter at Higgins’ in-your-face style. But they applauded loudly when Fallon asked: “Can that guy run for president?”
Well, he can run for Congress. At least some polls suggest that he is running second to front-runner PSC Commissioner Scott Angelle, as a dozen candidates vie for the seat that U.S. Rep. Charles Boustany is vacating. It’s a two-man race, Higgins says, although other candidates might disagree.
Supporters, God lent Higgins strength
His campaign, he said, was born “in the spirit of a million or so citizens who support me.” He counts supporters among those across the country who view his videos, which he said have been seen by more than 100 million people, in all 50 states and around the world.
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He said his departure from the Sheriff's Office provided him "a prayerful time" as he considered his options. Supporters implored him to run for public office, he said, and he initially considered runs for House or Senate. He said he "hated what happened," the cascade of events that caused him to leave law enforcement, but it turned his attention toward going to Washington, something he said he never would have considered before this year.
How to decide which politicalrace? Higgins said he had no shortage of political advice. But he relied on another source, he insists: 1Corinthians 2:5, in which Pauladvises men to place their faith "not inthe wisdom of of man" but in "thepower of God."
Higginscrossed district lines to run in the 3rd. He lives in northern St. Landry, in the 5th district, where incumbent Dr. Ralph Abraham lives, but the law does not prohibit him from running or serving in the 3rd District, where the seat is open. Federal law does not prohibit running out of district.
Higgins' target: Scott Angelle
He chose the 5th, he said, to target Angelle's candidacy.He said he holds no personal ill will toward Angelle, but said the Founding Fathers did not envision a "political class" or "career politicians" who would run unceasingly for public office.
Angelle has served in local government, as an appointed state official and as a Public Service Commissioner.In 2015, Angelle ran for governor, winning six of the nine parishes in the 3rd Congressional District.
Higgins tells audiences that the Founding Fathers intended for U.S. House members to come from the workingclass, common citizens who run for office, representtheir constituents part time or for brief periods of time, then return to their lives as common citizens.
Member of the 'common class'
He said he clearly belongs to the "common class." He and his wife, Becca, he said, only recently became what they jokingly refer to as "thousand-aires," clearing their debt, netting some savings andbuyinga small house north of Port Barre.
READ MORE: Did Clay Higgins cross the line?
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"I'm an educated man" who speaks two languages,he said, though not a degreed one. He grew up first in New Orleans, the seventh of eight children in an Irish Catholic family that moved to rural St. Tammany to raise horses. He graduated Covington High, attended LSU, where he achieved "almost four years of education in seven years." Much of his education was self-directed. His family had a large home library and his father insisted that his children "read and speak properly."
Higgins said he led a "rebellious" life as a young man that extended into middle age. He and his first wife quarreled after the death of a child; she later died in a trafficcrash. He and his second wife, the mother of his children, were torn apart because of his own indiscretions, he said. He was a success in business, he said, but a failure in his personal life, even an adulterer, he concedes.
His divorce and the loss of his children served as his own metanoia, a spiritual conversion that led him to St. Landry Parish,toa law enforcement career at age 41, to embrace the Bible and redirect his life path.
"I spent 40 years trying to assassinate my own character," he said. "If I couldn't do it, could you?"
A turn toward law enforcement
He served six years in the military, he said, a mix of Army and National Guard duty. That duty included time in the military police and a stretch in Panama. He left a staff sergeant.
Always a strict constitutionalist, he said as a street cop he used his respect for law and order, including his belief in civil rights, and his growing religious faith in dealing with street criminals. That's why, he said, the typical message of his Crime Stopper videos was twofold: The law will catch up with the suspect, he says, and the suspect should seek personal redemption by turning himself in.
His own redemption, he said, was aided by learning to cast off personal riches, by learning to "live small," by struggling financially and, finally, through his 2009 marriage. He shared that possibility of redemption with criminal suspects and their families, he said, because he believed that if he could be redeemed, they, too, can be redeemed.
He knows how rapidly fortunes can change, too. He became the sheriff's public information officer in November 2014 and rose from corporal to sergeant to lieutenant to captain.
"I did my job. I did my best," he said. "I had no idea I would become so well known."
