Democrat Carlton Lyles, currently a major with the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, announced on Friday that he will seek the county’s top law enforcement job in a video posted to a campaign Facebook page on Friday.

Lyles is the third candidate overall and the first Democrat to announce a campaign since Sheriff Tracy Carter said in January that he would not seek a fifth termBrian Estes, a Republican who is currently a captain with the office, announced he would week the office within a week of Carter’s statement, and Tim Smith, a former deputy from 2003 to 2017 and also a Republican, announced his campaign in February.

Lyles has been with the office for all of Carter’s tenure, and before that worked for Carter, who had been chief of the now-dissolved Lee County Schools Special Police Department.

Filing for the 2022 sheriff’s race opens in December.