Harry Lee, 75; 7-term sheriff was a fixture in Louisiana politics

Harry Lee, the seven-term sheriff of Metairie, La., whose blunt talk sometimes led to sour relations with black leaders, died Monday, several months after announcing he had leukemia, his chief deputy said. He was 75.

Even in a state with a long history of brash and colorful politicians -- fiery orators like Huey and Earl Long, country singer Jimmie Davis, the dapper Edwin Edwards -- Lee cut an uncommon figure: a rotund, white-haired Chinese American with a penchant for western wear and a love of country music.

“As a law enforcement professional and as a fixture of Louisiana politics, Harry Lee was one of a kind,” Gov. Kathleen Blanco said. “It is sad that Louisiana has lost such an extraordinary and colorful leader.”

It was his clashes with black leaders as sheriff of the mostly white New Orleans suburb that often made news during his nearly three-decade tenure.

The most recent such disagreement came after Hurricane Katrina devastated the region on Aug. 29, 2005. Lee’s agency faced an upsurge in crime, blamed largely on the illegal drug business that had been dislodged from neighboring New Orleans.

Lee prompted outrage by suggesting his deputies could randomly question young black men in high-crime areas. Lee later abandoned the plan, but made no apologies for it.

In 1987, he was blamed by many for putting up temporary barricades between mostly black New Orleans and mostly white Jefferson Parish. The barricades were actually ordered by the Jefferson Parish Council, according to news reports. However, Lee was quoted as saying at the time that the controversy might help his reelection bid that year.

In another incident, following a rash of robberies in white neighborhoods, he ordered his deputies to arbitrarily stop “young blacks in rinky-dink cars” driving in white neighborhoods. He later backed off.

When nutria, large water-loving rodents, started digging holes in the vital levee system, Lee sent armed deputies to hunt them down, leaving more than a few animal rights activists displeased.

All the brouhahas never seemed to hurt popular support for this true rarity in Louisiana politics.

“Even when people disagreed with his techniques, few doubted his dedication,” said New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin, who is black. “He was an original, and he will be missed.”

Lee always denied charges of bigotry and said they were hurtful for a man born in the back room of a Chinese laundry in New Orleans in 1932.

After graduating from Louisiana State University in 1956 with a degree in geology and serving in the Air Force in San Antonio, Lee returned to the New Orleans area. His family had opened a popular Chinese restaurant called House of Lee in Metairie, where he met U.S. Rep Hale Boggs and worked as the Democratic lawmaker’s driver.

Lee graduated from Loyola University law school in 1967 and with Boggs’ help was named federal magistrate in 1971. Four years later he was appointed chief attorney for Jefferson Parish. In 1979 he won his first election as parish sheriff.

Lee, who made a brief, abandoned run for governor in 1995, was a heavy favorite to win reelection as sheriff of Jefferson Parish on Oct. 20, despite his illness.

Survivors include his wife, Lai; and a daughter.