In 2002, being outed put Brett Jones’s Navy career at risk. On November 3, voters in Madison County, Alabama, chose the former Navy SEAL to be their next sheriff.
Jones, a Democrat, defeated Republican incumbent Kevin Turner, who had held the job for two terms. PinkNews reported that Jones will become Alabama’s first openly gay sheriff, a milestone the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund highlighted when it backed his campaign.
According to Huntsville News Today’s reporting on the unofficial county results, Jones received 84,068 votes to Turner’s 74,639.
A Life in Uniform
Jones served in the Navy, worked in protective operations for the CIA and went into local policing, according to his campaign biography. The early part of that career came with a personal cost. A 2015 Los Angeles Times profile traced how a voicemail led to his being outed and a Navy investigation during the era of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
The same profile caught up with him years later in northern Alabama, where he had built a family with Jason White, a former police detective. That earlier chapter gives the election a personal dimension. Jones once had to keep a relationship secret from his teammates. This week his name was on the ballot in the part of Alabama he had made home.
What He Plans to Change
Jones’s campaign platform called for independent reviews of deaths in custody and more training for deputies and corrections officers. In his post-election interview with WAFF, he said he did not plan to renew the office’s contracts for Flock license plate readers. He also said deputies would need warrants to access cameras operated by other agencies.
In that interview, Jones described the work ahead in terms of public safety, jail reform and constitutional rights. WAFF reports that he is due to be sworn in in January. That’s when Madison County will start to see how he puts those promises into practice.
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