Lang Enters Sheriff Race

At last week’s meeting of the Stephens County Republican party, retired Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent Cris Lang announced his candidacy for Stephens County Sheriff.

A long-time resident of Stephens County, Lang said that he reached the FBI’s mandatory retirement age and decided that he wanted to continue to serve the community. “I have all of this training and experience,” Lang said. “I’m not through serving yet.”

Lang graduated from Duncan High School in 1980 and earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Criminal Justice Technology from Cameron University in 1984. He served on the Duncan Police Department from 1985 until 1988 before joining the US Department of Justice Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) as a Special Agent, serving with the Los Angeles International Airport Task Force and the Los Angeles Clandestine Laboratory Taskforce.

Lang said that although his career has often taken him out of Stephens County, he always found a way to return to the area. “My 33-year career [in law enforcement] has been mostly in Stephens County,” he said. “Every time I moved for a job, I came back.”

Lang returned to Duncan in 1991 to serve as Director of the District 6 Drug Task Force and was the Chief Investigator for the Office of the District Attorney. He also met his wife Lisa, a former Agent of the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, and they married in 1992.

In 1998, Lang received an appointment as Special Agent of the FBI and was initially assigned to the San Antonio, TX division before transferring to the Oklahoma City Field Division, Lawton Resident Agency that serves southwest Oklahoma including Stephens County. He retired in December 2018.

Lang said that his much of his career has been dedicated to serving on task forces and small offices, coordinating with State, local, and Federal partners and cooperating with other agencies. “That’s a force multiplier,” he said.

He said that his priority as Sheriff would be “understanding problems and focusing on solutions,” specifically, examining staffing and service call trends to focus county resources. He said he would like to “drill down” on identifying areas where services could be improved, such as response time or using law enforcement presence as a deterrent to crime.

“My primary goal is effective, efficient services,” Lang said.

Lang said that he is looking forward to getting out into the community during his campaign and is planning some community forums and meet and greet events.