Wyoming Gets its First Black Sheriff After Shooting, Unrest

Wyoming has just appointed Aaron Appelhans, 39, as its first Black sheriff.

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Wyoming has just appointed Aaron Appelhans, 39, as its first Black sheriff.

As a student at the Wyoming Law Enforcement Academy, Aaron Appelhans used to look at the photos of past graduating classes hanging on the wall.

“I got to see, for the most part, ain’t a whole lot of people that looked like me around here,” he recalled of the mainly white faces.

A decade later, Appelhans was appointed Wyoming’s first Black sheriff, a post he took months after fury over racist policing roiled U.S. cities. His turf includes one of Wyoming’s last Democratic strongholds, but the state is overwhelmingly conservative and white and he’s already faced a racist remark from a lawmaker.

It didn’t surprise him. Wyoming has made progress but remains “very racist,” said Stephen Latham, president of the state NAACP.

Read rest of story here.

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