Harrison County Sheriff candidates sit down with WXXV

Harrison County will have a new sheriff named very soon, as current Sheriff Troy Peterson is set to retire. News 25’s Ansley Brent caught up with the two men vying for the Sheriff’s seat.

For the first time since 2015, Harrison County will have a new Sheriff.

The two candidates in the race are making their final pitches to voters, in what has been one of the more hotly contested races in South Mississippi this election season.

The two men putting themselves on the ballot are Louis Alias and Matt Haley.

“Law enforcement has definitely been a calling for me,” said Alias.  “It started at a young age and I’ve followed that passion for my lifetime to date. I started in law enforcement at about 19 years old, emancipated and worked patrol and a lot of aspects of patrol, investigations, and then on into administration. I have an equal balance, 13 years on the front lines and 13 years in administration

“In the last five years of my career I was an administrative captain over three 

divisions and basically helping the Sheriff make decisions for the department as a whole. It wasn’t until I got into patrol that I realized this is me, I was born to do this,” said Haley. “ It’s service before self, and anybody in law enforcement feels the same way. It’s service before self.”

Both with 26 years of experience, the two candidates see the need to increase safety amongst schools and have ideas on how to do it.

“Right now we don’t have any K-9’s in our schools,” said Haley. “Once upon a time we had school resource dogs in our schools. I’m not saying that’s going to keep all the drugs out of our schools, but it’s definitely a deterrent, and I think it’s something that we need to move towards.”

“We need to be allocating more resources and approaching it from a proactive standpoint instead of reactive because by the time you respond to a school, 9 times out of 10 it’s over and the damage is done,” said Alias.

Elias said he also wants to work towards getting criminals off the streets of Harrison County.

“They’re able to commit crimes without consequence,” Elias said. “Our jail services, all of the cities, the police departments depend on us to be able to put these individuals in jail when they commit a crime and our policies are prohibiting it right now. The culprit behind that is the man power and the man power issues can be resolved by changing the way we do business within the jail. How we recruit, how we retain those individuals once we get them to the table, it’s just changing the way we business.

One thing Haley wants to do is reduce the tension between law enforcement and the Harrison County Community.

“There was a time in law enforcement where we were very invested in these neighborhood watch programs,” said Haley. “We would bring our resources out to these neighborhoods, do K-9 demonstrations, we would cook and we would do different things that would bring the community out and they got to know the officers that were working that area and patrolling the streets, and I think it helped them build relationships by doing that.”

Both Elias and Haley are ready to take on the huge responsibility of being the next Harrison County sheriff.

“We have a service that we’re offering. We have ideas, we want to make things better for the employees of the Sheriff’s office to our community, our children, our elderly, and it’s a sincere passion,” said Elias.

“The Harrison County Sheriff’s office has been a home to me. I’ve spent over half of my life at the Sheriff’s office, and I’ve worked for this community for over half my life, and I just want a chance to continue doing that,” said Haley.

The winner of the race will be determined Tuesday night, August 8th, as both candidates are running in the republican primary and no democrats filed for the race.