In 2015, Clay Higgins started his climb to Congress with a series of videos promising to hunt down lawbreakers. As a spokesman for the St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office in Louisiana, Higgins generated national attention by making Crime Stoppers public service announcements as straight-to-camera monologues. His menacing promises got him billed as the “Cajun John Wayne” in coverage by CBS News and the Washington Post. In reality, public information officer Higgins was neither Cajun nor much of a street cop.