Clay Higgins: The Cajun Boss Hog
June 20, 2023
The night federal prosecutors indicted Donald Trump for dozens of felonies, Representative Clay Higgins tweeted the following:
The writer Jeff Sharlet – author of The Undertow: Scenes From a Slow Civil War, a book I highly recommend – deconstructed the Tweet in an article for The Atlantic. Higgins is basically calling for armed insurrection, the same fascist call to arms I have heard from far-right sheriffs across the country in the course of reporting my forthcoming book.
As Sharlet points out, Higgins bounced around for most of his life in the paramilitary-law enforcement industrial complex, working for the Louisiana National Guard and the police department of Opelousas. In between his gun-carrying gigs, Higgins managed car dealerships, one of the few other jobs where political influence is wholly untethered to accomplishment or excellence.
I pause here to talk about Higgins’s career as a law enforcement officer, always on the cusp of being fired, but never disciplined or sanctioned. His path to the Legislature reflects just how the Law Enforcement Baronial Class works to elevate people like Higgins – those who not just use violence as a tool but celebrate it, those who appear to have no awareness of just how much they have benefitted from a system that kidnaps people from their homes and off the street, incarcerates them in facilities that are dangerous and unhealthy, separates families, strips people of the dignity, and, more often than one would think, shoots people dead in the street.
Higgins started his “law” “enforcement” “career” as an officer in Opelousas, a town of around 15,000 people next to Evangeline Downs, a big ol’ racetrack. During the 1950s and 60s, the local sheriff was infamous for allowing illegal gambling and sex work operations in his district, from which he took a cut.
In 2007, Higgins faced an internal investigation for beating up a Black man for no good reason (are there good reasons?). According to the official investigation, Higgins grabbed Andre “Red” Richard “around the neck, struck him across the head, and allegedly kicked him while he lay handcuffed.” Higgins then lied about it, only confessing to the incident after he found out that a witness had told the truth. According to the then-police chief, Higgins was pissed off that he had been caught, allegedly telling the chief, “You are going to suspend me for that trash?”
The department recommended that Higgins receive a demotion, get fired from the SWAT team, and be suspended for 160 hours without pay.
After this incident, Higgins became the subject of yet another internal investigation, involving a beer run Higgins made en route to a SWAT competition in which Higgins, in full SWAT gear, bought beer at a convenience store and then placed it on top of his official department vehicle. Both of these were against department policy. At the ensuing pool party, Higgins insulted the police chief, calling him a “peacock.” Higgins, of course, claimed he was in trouble for the peacock comment; the then-police chief said this was not true – he was within days of being officially disciplined and losing his precious SWAT spot.
Higgins quit – because he knew that if he left the department before receiving punishment, no one would ever know. Like so many other bad cops, Higgins was able to conceal his misbehavior and keep carrying deadly firearms.
Higgins’s right-hand man in both the extrajudicial beatdown and the beer run was a guy named John Chautin, who was also investigated for his role and lied about it. In 2017, Higgins hired Chautin to be a “staffer,” which I am sure is a coincidence.
After leaving the Opelousas city police force, Higgins bounced to the Port Barre Police Department; then he joined the St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office, working his way up to Sergeant. (Later, the St. Landry Parish Sheriff said he would not have hired Higgins had he known about the prior investigations.) As the Public Information Officer, Higgins created a media-friendly persona and starred – as himself – in videos where he mocked people accused of crimes and made vague threats of violence.
The media nicknamed him the “Cajun John Wayne” and he gained a reputation for being racist and mean, which for some reason continues to delight a segment of white folk. In one infamous segment, Higgins wears body armor and carries an assault-style rifle while he threatens an alleged suspect. Higgins says, “Young man, I’ll meet you on solid ground any time-anywhere, light or heavy — makes no difference to me. You won’t walk away!”
This particular video received public pushback. The ACLU wrote a letter and, in response, Higgins made what sounds like a threat of violence framed as a “friendly debate”:
I could bring 9,998 of my followers, and they could bring both of theirs…If they have a position they believe is righteous, and I have my position that I believe is righteous, then by all means let us stand on a stage in a debate format with an independent panel of judges.
Higgins made dozens of videos in which he made vague threats against mostly Black suspects; none of these Crime Stoppers segments are clear whether the charges were backed up by any evidence instead of just an assemblage of rumors. Worst of all in an egregious example of the copaganda bias, the mainstream media lionized Higgins, calling him by his nickname “Cajun John Wayne” and describing him as “mixing humor with tough talk.” Take this 2015 Washington Post article, which treats Higgins like a cool dude, with no discussion of how he had by then faced multiple disciplinary charges, and exaggerates Higgins’s law enforcement experience. Uplifting someone like Higgins in the pages of a real newspaper unquestionably led to his acceptability as a congressional candidate.
The sheriff later said he told Higgins several times his trash talk was “unprofessional,” but Higgins did not care. And why would he? He had successfully evaded accountability at that point for at least a decade.
Just as he was about to get fired from that job, he quit in 2016. According to Higgins, the sheriff was “trying to muzzle him.” Again, Higgins placed the blame on his boss, saying in his official press announcement about his resignation:
I will die before I will sacrifice my principles. I will die and leave my wife without a husband, my children without a daddy, rather than kneel to the very forces of evil that I have so long stood against. So I will sacrifice my life for my principles. Surely you understand, I must sacrifice my job.
And again, Higgins appears to have been lying.
According to the sheriff, Higgins was guilty of “repeatedly defying orders — and [of] trying to profit in ways that ran afoul of Sheriff’s Office policy and state law, including by spending time on-the-clock hawking ‘Captain Higgins’ merchandise and trying to line up paid speaking gigs.”
While Higgins was making snazzy videos of himself trash-talking, he was also trying to pitch a T.V. show (starring himself, natch) involving “SWAT raids across the country.” Emails from his official department account reflect discussions with talent agents and lawyers, including one request to be paid in cash. (Like all cool dudes, Higgins’s wages were being garnished for back taxes and he owed unpaid child support.). Higgins didn’t forget his partner in crime Chautin, who was written into a role “as a ‘retired SWAT cop’ and [Higgins’s] ‘best friend, workout partner and assistant Sensei.’” Higgins also filmed a T.V. ad for a local alarm company while wearing his official uniform, which is against policy.
Salon posted some tidbits from Higgins’s emails about his proposed reality television show “American Justice”:
In his emails, Higgins had attached a short draft for a rough cut of an "American Justice" pilot. “Because I’m a police officer, I can actively engage in manhunts,” he says in the video. “We’ll offer the suspects a chance at redemption, to express regret and seek a new path by talking directly to me.”
In 2016, Clay Higgins was elected to represent the 3rd Congressional District in Louisiana. He joined the reserve marshal program in Lafayette. According to at least one news article, he didn’t do any actual work in Lafayette, but as a member of the volunteer program, Higgins received special privileges, like the ability to fly on an airplane with his service weapon (also provided by the department). He left that “job” around 2019 as part of a “winnowing” down of the reserve program; at the time, the City Marshal of Lafayette said he eliminated people who “appear to have been deputized for no other reason than political patronage.”
Higgins then became a reserve officer for the Attorney General’s Office, which appears to be a vague job that entails no actual work. As his ex-boss, the St. Landry Parish Sheriff told one news source, “I think he’s trying to convince people that he’s a street cop. And you know what? He’s not,” pointing out that Higgins only had something like four years of police experience, which he only got bouncing among three departments and racking up multiple misconduct charges.
After Higgins became a legislator, his pew-pew antics did not end. The Advocate described one 2020 Facebook post that inspired at least one local militia:
In a Facebook post Tuesday that featured a picture of Black men carrying assault-style weapons and other tactical gear, Higgins, R-Lafayette, said that anyone arriving in the state ‘aggressively natured and armed’ would have a ‘one way ticket.’
"I'd drop any 10 of you where you stand," said the post, which was removed not long after appearing on Higgins' official campaign account. "Nothing personal. We just eliminate the threat. We don't care what color you are. We don't care if you're left or right. if you show up like this, if We recognize threat...you won't walk away."”
Higgins is also an admitted fan of the III% militia and refers to Donald Trump as “rPOTUS” – the “real” POTUS. He told Twitter they rigged the election and would go to jail, which was technically threatening a witness.
Sharlet ends his Atlantic piece with a warning:
Do they believe what they’re saying? Do they mean their violent implications? Does it matter? Their civil war is imaginary, but there really are men with guns, more now than I’ve seen in 20 years of reporting on the right.
Higgins has been who he is for all of these years, using his position to uplift the violence of white supremacy through perfectly legal means – with a badge and service revolver – and evading all accountability. He isn’t just one bad apple; he explains why the system continues, unabated. In many ways, the new civil war has been waged for decades. Only now are the more privileged able to see it.
I'm glad you included the note about how his wages were being garnished for unpaid child support. I had assumed, of course, but you know what happens when you assume...
The citizens of his Louisiana district need to not reelect him. He is the trash that needs removed from government.