Waller County chief deputy to serve as interim sheriff
Waller County commissioners on Wednesday appointed a veteran law enforcement officer to serve as sheriff following the death of R. Glenn Smith, according to a news release issued by the county judge.
Chief Deputy Joe Hester will serve as sheriff for the rest of the year. Smith, the sheriff since 2009, died of a heart attack Aug. 1.
Republican Troy Guidry, who had defeated Smith in a primary, and
Democrat Cedric Watson will vie to be the county’s next sheriff in the Nov. 3 election. The winner will take office Jan. 1.
“It is indeed a honor and a privilege to take Sheriff Smith’s place as Sheriff to fulfill the remainder of his term,” said Hester, in the news release. “I look forward to serving the citizens of Waller County to the best of my ability in the coming months.”
Hester’s career in law enforcement spans over 40 years, according to the news release. He previously served as chief of police in Hempstead, Navasota and Katy.
He has worked at the Waller County Sheriff ’s Office since 2007.
“Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with the family of Sheriff Smith, but at this point, we know that Sheriff Hester will continue to run the department with the same efficacy and leadership that Sheriff Smith had, and we look
forward to supporting him in that regards,” Waller County Judge Trey Duhon said in a written statement.
In his new position, Hester will shepherd the transition of the sheriff ’s office and jail to the new Waller County Justice Center. The center is set to be completed in September.
Duhon said that Smith was “instrumental” in winning passage of the $39.5 million jail bond in 2017
and in designing the new jail and sheriff ’s office.
“I know that Sheriff Hester will honor Sheriff Smith’s contributions in that regards to making sure the transition goes as smoothly as possible over the next few months,” Duhon said in the statement.
Smith, 61, spent more than 40 years working in law enforcement agencies across southeast Texas.
Smith came under intense scrutiny in 2015 after a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper pulled over and arrested 28-yearold Sandra Bland, a Black woman
and Prairie View A&M University graduate who had returned to the area to work for her alma mater. She had allegedly failed to signal a lane change. Three days later, Bland was found hanged in her jail cell, a death that was ruled a suicide by the medical examiner.
Bland’s arrest following an argument with an irate trooper — captured by police dashcam and her cell phone — and her death drew national outrage and galvanized civil rights activists and criminal justice reform advocates, leading to sweeping legislation aimed at making jails safer.
Bland’s mother later sued the county and reached a $1.8 million settlement. The trooper was indicted for perjury and fired, but prosecutors ultimately moved to drop the charge.
The Texas Commission on Jail Standards found the jail could not prove it had complied with state standards regarding staff training and observation of inmates.
Smith also invited an outside committee of defense lawyers and other officials to scrutinize the jail operations, and instituted a series of reforms to screen new inmates for mental health and make sure they were monitored more closely while detained.
Many of those reforms were later included in the Sandra Bland Act, which mandates that county jails divert people with mental illnesses and substance abuse to treatment facilities and require that police departments investigate jail deaths. The measure was signed into law in 2017 by Gov. Greg Abbott.