Sweetwater County Sheriff Mike Lowell Announces His Candidacy For Re-Election

Sweetwater County Sheriff Mike Lowell Announces His Candidacy For Re-Election

SWEETWATER COUNTY — Sweetwater County Sheriff Mike Lowell today announced his run for a second term.

The following is his campaign announcement, you can submit your campaign announcement here.

The full text follows:

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Sweetwater County Sheriff Mike Lowell announced today his candidacy for a second term.

Lowell was first elected Sheriff in 2014. Prior to that, he was Chief of the Rock Springs Police Department for 12 years and served a total of 32 years with that agency, rising through the ranks. He holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in History and an Associate’s Degree in Liberal Arts, with an emphasis in Criminal Justice. He served with the United States Marine Corps both on active duty and as a member of the Marine Corps Reserve. He and his wife Virginia have six children and 14 grandchildren, with another on the way.

Lowell credited the hard work and professionalism of the men and women of the Sheriff’s Office in working with him as a team to:

• Implement a reorganization of the Sheriff’s Office based on merit, achievement, and leadership.
• Upgrade Sheriff’s Office technology to keep pace with ever-increasing public safety and criminal justice system needs.
• Increasing patrols and improving services in the largest county in Wyoming. In 2017, Sheriff’s Office logged over
23,000 public safety, emergency services, law enforcement, and detention center tasks, contacts, and assignments, including calls for service, criminal investigations, sex offender checks, prisoner transports, arrests, citations, traffic stops, traffic crashes, motorist assists, building checks, property watches, welfare checks, alarms, fires, 911 calls, and animal calls, an increase of 20% over the previous year.
• Foster merit-based hiring and promotion practices.
• Maintain an efficient, legally-based, constitutionally safe detention center.
• Implement the first Sweetwater County Detention Center audit.
• Streamline the communication process.
• Upgrade the Sheriff’s Office sex offender registration system and increase the frequency of face-to-face sex offender compliance checks throughout the county.
• Work diligently to maintain a high level of security for our Circuit and District Courts.
• Take the lead in serving domestic violence, stalking, and civil orders.
• Upgrade training for patrol, detective, and detention personnel.

In announcing his re-election bid, Lowell said, “Among my goals was the creation of a special detective unit tasked with a special focus on drug enforcement and fugitive apprehension and building effective K9 teams. Early in my first year, our SNAAG (Sheriff’s Narcotics and Arrest Group) commenced operations and its first week made 13 arrests.

Since then, the SNAAGteam has been involved in over 400 arrests and fugitive apprehensions on charges including Drug Trafficking, Felony Drug Possession, Drug Manufacture, Conspiracy, Homicide, Aggravated Homicide by Vehicle, Probation Violation, Burglary, Auto Theft, Forgery, Kidnaping, Aggravated Assault and Battery, Domestic Battery, Strangulation of a Household Member, Interstate Flight, Weapons Violations, Felony Theft, Prostitution, Soliciting, and Escape.

In many instances, fugitives wanted in Sweetwater County were tracked to and captured in Idaho, Colorado, Utah, Montana, and as far away as Kentucky, Florida, and Alaska.

“Over time, we assembled our K9 teams and provided them the extensive training required for general patrol work and drug interdiction. The results speak for themselves; since October of 2017 alone, our K9 units have made 19 felony drug arrests and seized over half a ton of marijuana, liquid marijuana, dab (marijuana wax), heroin, and methamphetamine with a street value of well over $5 million.”

Among Lowell’s professional and civic affiliations are the National Sheriff’s Association, the Wyoming Association of Sheriffs and Chiefs of Police, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the National Rifle Association, the American Legion (Life Member), the USMC Heritage Foundation, the National Museum of the Marine Corps (Founding Member), and the Governor’s Task Force on School Safety and Security.

The campaign’s Facebook page can be found on Facebook.

A campaign website is under construction and will go live in the near future. To reach the campaign staff, email contactus@reelectsheriffmikelowell.com.”

My message for the people of Sweetwater County is this:” Lowell said, “To judge our level of success and accomplishments over the past three years, just check the record. It has been an honor and a privilege to serve as your Sheriff, and I would welcome the opportunity to continue leading the committed professionals of the Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office in their most important duty: protecting what you value most.”