Meet the Candidate: Travis Rawls – Grimes County Sheriff
BRYAN, Texas (KBTX) – Early voting is one week away. One race Grimes County voters will see on their ballot is County Sheriff.
All three candidates will appear on News 3 at Six this week.
Don Sowell currently holds the position and is running for reelection. Two other candidates are also vying for the position: Michael Donnelly and Travis Rawls.
Rawls, who has 32 years of law enforcement experience, joined News 3 at Six on Tuesday to discuss why he believes he’s the right man for the job.
“I look forward to utilizing all my training and experience, to provide the Grimes County Sheriff’s Office with the most current and up to date training, and equipment and things to help our community feel safer,” Rawls said.
Rawls says he wants to see change within the department.
“I would like to see a more proactive approach to law enforcement in general,” Rawls said. “We have 1 to 3 deputies covering Grimes County which is 800 square miles and that’s not safe for our deputies or our citizens.”
He says he will work with county commissioners to budget for more deputies.
“As sheriff, you have to build a good working relationship with the commissioners and you have to be prepared to make the appropriate allocations of tax payer dollars,” Rawls said. “There’s also additional funding you can utilize like grants and drug seizure funding, utilize that stuff for training and equipment and save the tax payer dollars for additional bodies on the streets.”
Rawls says he plans to address the growing number of crime, by encouraging deputies to take a more proactive approach.
“Go hunting as we like to say. Go look for drug dealers, look for traffic violations. Start building the contacts and building the investigations which may lead to drug seizures.”
You can watch our entire interview with Rawls in the player above.
You can learn more about him by clicking here.
