JACKSON, Wyo. — Independent candidate for Teton County Sheriff Chris Glenn has acquired enough signatures for a petition to appear on the November ballot, facing off against the Democrat incumbent Matt Carr and patrol deputy and Republican candidate Eric Snow.
On Aug. 24, Glenn was notified that he had hit the mark on his petition to be added to the political race. Glenn received around 570 signatures. He currently works as an operations lead for Jackson Hole Mountain Resort’s retail distribution center. He told Buckrail that his primary motivation for running is to protect vulnerable communities, primarily undocumented immigrants, but also inclusive of documented immigrants who are “getting swept up” in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity, the LGBTQ+ community and women attempting to access reproductive health care.
“I don’t think we need to spend any county resources on laws that are going to be inherently discriminatory,” he said.
Glenn said that, though he has no law enforcement background, he considers himself an activist and community organizer. He is a co-founder of JH Action Coalition — an organization that has been working since March to try to end the cooperation between Teton County Sheriff’s Office (TCSO) and ICE. Through gathering signatures, Glenn has found that there is very little middle ground on the topic of ICE activity. “People were pretty instantly either on board or off board. … It’s been pretty positive, and at worst, kind of neutral, so people are very, very energized by this subject.”
Glenn views current ICE activity as a “humanitarian crisis.” His vision for changing the relationship between TCSO and ICE offers a few concrete steps that he believes should be taken.
“There’s a lot of things that we can do that would not impact us legally, but would protect that vulnerable community of undocumented folks that we have here in Teton County,” Glenn said. “We don’t have to honor the detainer requests that come without a warrant, and we can stop fishing for citizenship information at the time of booking. It’s actually not legally required.”
Another of Glenn’s concerns is the prevalence of drugs like GHB and Rohypnol, which are commonly known as date-rape drugs. He sees a push to crack down on drugs like marijuana as having a lower impact on the community, and thinks that drug enforcement resources could be shifted. He said there are currently drink testers available (some might remember the coasters found at bars), and that TCSO should be more active in distributing those.
“Talking to folks around town, it feels like there’s an epidemic here that’s really not being adequately addressed,” he explained. “I think we can both try and prevent it from entering the county and empower those who are here in the county already to protect themselves.”
