www.GoodMorningGwinnett.com With Butch Conway electing to not seek another term in office, the field to replace the longtime Gwinnett County sheriff is wide open, with four Democrats and two Republicans running to replace him.


Republican Lou Solis, Conway’s chief deputy, has received the sheriff’s endorsement. When announcing his retirement in January, Conway said he had hired Solis in 2017 hoping he would be the next sheriff. Solis is a retired Army Ranger and former assistant chief with Braselton police.“He’s prepared to step in,” Conway said. “I think he will continue the great things that we’ve been doing.”Solis started a unit at the jail exclusively for veterans and has said he supports the controversial immigration program known as 287(g), which releases detainees to federal custody to be deported.He’s being challenged by Keith Van Nus, a former Gwinnett sheriff’s deputy who ran against Conway in 2016. Van Nus said he would keep the program, but focus on applying it to violent offenders.
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That’s also the aim of Democrat Ben Haynes, a Special Victims Investigator with the Gwinnett District Attorney’s Office who has held other law enforcement jobs over the years. He said the way the program operates now leads to public mistrust.Haynes also said he wants to increase the diversity of the sheriff’s department and better train inmates for jobs.The other Democratic candidates would all eliminate 287(g).

Curtis Clemons, a former sheriff’s deputy who retired as an assistant chief in the Gwinnett County Police Department, called the program expensive and discriminatory. He also said he wants to end the school-to-prison pipeline and focus on mental health interventions.

SOURCE: www.AJC.com