Metro East Sun

The Village of Grafton City Council welcomed a new sheriff to the community during a recent meeting.

Nicholas Manns was elected county sheriff for Jersey, Illinois, in the November general election. He was invited by the Grafton City Council to attend its Dec. 20 meeting so that he and the community could have a chance to meet each other in person.

According to Manns, he was raised in the community after his parents moved there from another Illinois county when he was 7. Following his graduation from high school, he decided to get a job to raise enough money for law school and ultimately became a U.S. deputy marshal. After that, he moved on from wanting to study law and began pursuing a full-time career in law enforcement instead.

Manns started working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and was sent to Oklahoma City following the domestic terrorist bombing a year prior, bringing his wife with him. He spent some years there and then five years at the Navajo Indian Reservation in Arizona before returning to Jersey County due to a promise that he made to his family.

Making good on that promise to his wife and children, Manns came back to Illinois and retired from the FBI. He initially joined the Jersey County Sheriff's Office as a detective in 2016, then left for three years to work with the Illinois State Police before returning to the area to run for sheriff.

"I'm learning a lot of other aspects of my job but I am here," Manns said. "I've got to be working really closely with the Grafton Police Department. I have great respect for this police department, for the chief. And I look forward to doing whatever we can from the county's perspective. My door is always open. I do encourage the public to call me if you have ideas, if you have complaints. Whatever you have, we’re a small enough department that I can address these things. So please feel free to call."