Long career in law enforcement prepared Lindemann for position
One might say the role of Williamson County sheriff is one Matthew Lindemann was destined to fill.
Early inspiration, a childhood idol, twists of fate and deep community roots all seemingly lined up neatly in guiding his path to the job. He was elected Nov. 5 and took office Jan. 1.
Lindemann was born in Taylor in 1966, the year sniper Charles Whitman would barricade himself in the observation deck atop the University of Texas-Austin tower to indiscriminately fire on people on the ground below. The gunman would ultimately fatally wound 15 bystanders (including an unborn child) and injure 31 more before being killed by police.
Nearly 60 years later, the tragedy continues to elevate some of the lawmen involved to nearmythic status — perhaps none as vividly as Jim Boutwell, a legendary officer who would later serve as Williamson County sheriff.
Boutwell commandeered a small plane that day to engage Whitman in a gunfight, eventually distracting him enough that other cops at the scene were able to finally take him down.
Boutwell ultimately would emerge as a controversial figure for a tough-on-crime approach. But to an impressionable youth, the die was cast. In the intervening years following the UT-Austin campus massacre, Lindemann had found himself a role model.
“He just had the persona of a Texas lawman,” Lindemann told the Press in a recent interview. “He always wore a suit and western hat and had a slow drawl. He was a really interesting guy.”
As fate would have it, Lindemann would end up working under his childhood hero in 1985 when he took a job as a corrections officer for the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office.
“I was so young,” Lindemann recalled. “I was too scared to strike up a conversation with him,” he said of his idol, who would pass away some eight years later. “I wish I had taken a picture with him.”
The admiration appears reciprocal. After all, Boutwell tasked Lindemann to operate the jail while his young charge was still a teenager.
“I can’t believe he let a 19-year-old run the jail,” Lindemann said. “It’s a miracle all the inmates didn’t escape!”
THERE’S A NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN
Lindemann, a Republican, was sworn into office as Williamson County sheriff at the start of the new year, after defeating thenincumbent Sheriff Mike Gleason in his first term. Lindemann secured 52% of the vote versus 48% for Gleason.
Lindemann noted he personally alerted Gleason he’d be running against him — not only as a courtesy but to avoid any surprise for his political rival. The reflexive move was informed by equal parts hope for a clean race devoid of mudslinging and respect for his Democratic colleague, whose career he had closely followed.
“I felt that it was the decent thing to do to tell him I was filing to run for sheriff because I had known him his whole career,” Lindemann said. “It was a person-to-person kind of thing. It’s not that he was doing a bad job,” he said of the decision to challenge Gleason.
“I just thought that I had a few more tools in the toolbox.”
Indeed, Lindemann’s crime-fighting cache is substantive following a long career in long enforcement. After his eight-month stint as a corrections officer, Lindemann became a patrol deputy before joining the Department of Public Safety in 1990. He would retire as a lieutenant in the Texas Ranger Division after 28 years of service to the agency.
He then served as a sergeant investigator with the Williamson County District Attorney’s Office.
Prior to being elected sheriff, he had been appointed as Precinct 3 constable to fill a vacancy left after the sudden death of Kevin Stofle in October 2021.
HE ALMOST DONNED A DIFFERENT UNIFORM Yet for all his hardearned law enforcement bona fides, Lindemann first envisioned pursuing a career fighting fires, not crime. He applied to be a firefighter early on, only to learn he would have to wait until he was 19 to battle conflagrations.
The police department, on the other hand, took applicants as young as 18.
“I can’t wait a year,” he remembered thinking. “I need to get a job.”
Turning to law enforcement, he participated in a ride-along with a Bell County deputy who would pull over a car occupied by suspects in a shooting in Temple.
Lindemann was hooked: “It was so exciting,” he said. “There was a lot of adrenaline. That’s what got me interested.”
Later, Lindemann would learn of fire officials’ keen desire to hire him once he turned 19. By then, he was already intent on following law enforcement as a career.
“I got passed over and didn't know I had been considered,” he said.
BIDING HIS TIME IN A POST-CHODY ERA
Lindemann said he actually had wanted to run for sheriff earlier in a race against Gleason’s predecessor, Robert Chody. But he knew Chody, a former Austin Police Department officer, would prove too formidable an opponent — not by virtue of his experience but because of a $51.2 million windfall after his wife purchased a winning Lotto Texas ticket that would fuel a massive campaign war chest.
“I had wanted to run when Chody ran, but he had so much money,” Lindemann said. “I knew I couldn’t run without that much money, so I waited.”
To be sure, Chody would vanquish four well-qualified rivals in his 2016 campaign for sheriff, each armed with roughly $50,000 for campaign ads against his personal war chest of more than half-a-million dollars.
That advantage would prove insurmountable for the other candidates, prompting Lindemann to postpone his own race for sheriff after assessing that campaign calculus.
IT’S BACK TO BASICS FOR SHERIFF LINDEMANN
Chody’s scandal-ridden tenure would result in legal settlements for the county in defending against lawsuits stemming from the former sheriff’s participation in the defunct “Live PD” cable television reality program showcasing deputies aggressively taking down suspects. Lindemann labeled the Chody era as a “black eye” for the county.
To hear him describe it, Lindemann’s approach is less showy — with a focus rooted on traditional crime-fighting techniques rather than Hollywood glitz.
As impetus to employ tried-and-true techniques in fighting crime, he pointed to the brisk expansion of the county as more people are lured to Wilco.
“Unfortunately, they’re not all preachers and deacons,” he said of the population influx. His priority; “I don’t know if it’s a matter of fixing but being able to keep up with the growth. With that growth, more crime will be coming to our county whether we like it or not.”
In the next breath, he cited a personal motive to protect and serve in the community where he’s spent the lion’s share of his career.
“We raised our children and grandchildren here, and I want Williamson County to stay as safe as possible,” he said. “I want to make the sheriff’s office one of the best in the state, if not the country.”
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We raised our children and grandchildren here, and I want Williamson County to stay as safe as possible.”
-Sheriff Matthew Lindemann
