The sounds of James Brown, Sly & The Family Stone, and Stevie Wonder filled a Lake County banquet hall Tuesday night as supporters gathered to watch returns in a sheriff’s race that was setup to make history.
Jerry Williams, a Gary native who spent more than three decades with the Indiana State Police, was elected Lake County sheriff on Tuesday, becoming the county’s first Black sheriff.
Williams, a Democrat, defeated Republican David Crane Jr. with 66% of the vote, according to unofficial results from the Lake County Board of Elections and Registration with 172 of 336 precincts/vote centers reporting as of 9 p.m.
The race was called early in the night, a result few expected to be close in a county where Democrats have long dominated countywide offices.
Williams celebrated with supporters at the Hellenic Banquet Center in Merrillville shortly before 9 p.m
“I am forever grateful,” he told supporters. “Each one of you in this room today represents what working hard does to you over the course of time.
“I’m blessed to stand here, a part of you, and you a part of me, as your first African American sheriff. It is not lost on me what this means to our communities, and it’ll never be taken for granted. I’m gonna do the best I can for you, I promise you.”
As the music played and election results from across the country trickled in, the room grew silent before it exploded as the DJ announced that former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms had been elected governor of Georgia.
Williams will be sworn in Jan. 1, succeeding Sheriff Oscar Martinez Jr., who was barred by term limits from seeking a third consecutive term.
Williams announced his candidacy in June 2024, nearly two years before the primary, and emerged from a crowded six-candidate Democratic field in May. He won 10,137 of the 38,741 votes cast, or about 26%, ahead of St. John Police Chief Steve Flores and Lake County Sheriff’s Department Deputy Police Chief Edward Jenkins.
Williams began his law enforcement career as a corrections officer with the Lake County Sheriff’s Department before joining the Indiana State Police. There, he worked as a road trooper in Lake County, served on a gang task force that conducted investigations in Gary, East Chicago, Hammond, Munster, and Highland, and later worked in the agency’s internal investigations division before leading the ISP’s seven-county Lowell District.
In Gary, he’s best known for leading the Indiana State Police’s partnership with the Gary Police Department.
Crane’s second run
Crane was making his second straight run for sheriff after losing to Martinez in 2022. He ran as an insider seeking to fix the department from within. He blamed the Martinez administration for the jail’s staffing problems, writing to Capital B Gary that “Jail staff only became a problem under this past administration.” He promised to hire an experienced warden to recruit new corrections officers, and to work with the County Council to raise their pay.
He also cast the department’s troubles as a partisan problem.
“In my view, Democratic sheriffs have not demonstrated care in how public funds are spent,” Crane told Capital B Gary before the election.
What the winner inherits
Williams takes over one of Northwest Indiana’s largest law enforcement agencies, which is responsible for county patrol, the courts, and the Lake County Jail in Crown Point.
But he also inherits an office with a history of scandal. Former Sheriff John Buncich was convicted on federal corruption and bribery charges in 2017 and removed from office. Martinez, who was chosen by a Democratic precinct committee member to finish Buncich’s term, was himself indicted in 2022 on a felony resisting law enforcement charge and misdemeanor reckless driving stemming from a 2021 traffic stop in Crown Point. He pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor in exchange for prosecutors dropping the felony charge and was sentenced to 60 days of probation.
During the campaign, candidates were pressed on how they would rein in the spending of jail commissary funds, how the office would cooperate with federal immigration authorities under current state law, and how to address overcrowding at the jail.
