Travis sheriff moving on
Margo Frasier changed attitudes in her two terms before stepping down
By Tony Plohetski
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Margo Frasier's stepfather sat in his favorite blue leather recliner that day as he and Frasier prepared to grab burgers at the Frisco or enchiladas at the Dart Bowl. Frasier decided to bring up a long-simmering issue. She had been telling Stan Goebler for weeks that she was going to run for Travis County sheriff. He had been threatening his stepdaughter for weeks that he would not vote for her. "I finally said, 'Daddy, what's going on?' " Frasier said, remembering the 1996 conversation. "He told me with tears in his eyes that he didn't want people to pick on me. He said, 'No one should pick on you. You are who you are.' " In a profession that generally raises images of pistol-packing tough guys, Goebler thought Frasier would have two things working against her: She's a woman, and she's gay. But Frasier won the election, and she has used both to her benefit. Frasier, whose last day at her $102,000-a-year job was Friday, is credited with altering mind-sets in her conservative department. She also is praised for introducing community policing to rural Travis County, bringing the jails to state standards for the first time in a decade and adding millions of dollars in new equipment. During her first campaign and in the months after her election, Frasier consistently declined to talk publicly about her sexuality. While the gay press wrote stories about her status as a gay officeholder in conservative Texas, Frasier would not discuss the matter with reporters; she told one newspaper reporter that "a person's private life should be just that." But during her two terms in office, Frasier has evolved from declining public comment to publicly embracing her sexuality. She talks about being an adoptive mother and having a significant other. Today, Frasier downplays any suggestion that her public stance about her sexuality has changed. She says she didn't try to hide it -- in fact, she says that when she first ran for sheriff, she honestly answered a radio talk show caller who asked whether she was gay. But she never thought it was important to her role as sheriff. "I didn't feel it was honest to try to create a facade," she said. "My feeling was that if people started talking about my sexual orientation, that meant they were scared and knew they were whipped." Frasier's successor, Greg Hamilton, the county's first African American sheriff, will take office in early January. New challenges Frasier said she is looking forward to her next challenge. She, her partner, Yvonne, and 12-year-old daughter, Felicia, are moving to Huntsville, where Frasier has a job teaching in the criminal justice department at Sam Houston State University. She said she is proud of her accomplishments overall. Still, she wishes that she had persuaded county leaders to build a new jail and had done a better job of teaching the public about the role of corrections officers, who often think they are undervalued and underpaid. "I love Austin, and I'll be back," she said. "My mother lives here, my sister lives here and the Lady Longhorns play here. Some people may not even know I'll be gone." Improving standards Two years before she announced her campaign, Austin voters had shot down a policy to provide benefits to domestic partners of city employees. The defeat caused many in Austin's gay community to question their stability in a city that had long prided itself on being liberal and tolerant. Frasier's victory over Republican Alvin Shaw helped restore gay residents' faith in the community, said Eugene Sepulveda, a leader in Austin's gay community who teaches at the University of Texas McCombs School of Business. In her first term, Frasier introduced a fundamental change at the department: She moved as many as two-thirds of the detectives and patrol officers from the downtown headquarters to rural areas of the county, where the people they protected lived. Frasier and other department leaders said her plan allowed residents easier access to emergency services. Two high-profile shootings marked Frasier's second term. Deputy Keith Ruiz was killed in February 2001 while trying to pry open the door of a mobile home near Austin-Bergstrom International Airport where deputies were searching for drugs. The man charged with killing him, Edwin Delamora, was found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison. Delamora has said he fired because he thought someone was trying to break into his house. Delamora's lawyer, Leonard Martinez, said he has been disappointed with Frasier's two terms. He said that she has created hassles for defense lawyers -- they must surrender their cell phones when meeting clients in jail, for example -- and that she is too quick to defend deputies. In July 2003, after Deputy Gregory Truitt shot and killed a man in East Austin after the man pulled Truitt into his car, Frasier said he was justified in using deadly force. The fatal shooting was one of three in a 13-month period involving white officers and African Americans in Travis County. The other two involved Austin police officers. "Her attitude is that she will defend officers even when they are wrong," Martinez said. Frasier has said she supports her deputies until evidence shows they erred. Truitt was not disciplined in the incident, and a Travis County grand jury did not indict him. Others both inside and outside the department praise Frasier. Former Deputy Sean Ford, now a lieutenant with the Manor Police Department, said Frasier made the department a more modern agency by bringing in new technology, including upgraded computer terminals in patrol cars. He said she also started mandatory debriefings of officers involved in emotional incidents to help them cope with their feelings. "She brought diversity with her as far as who she was," he said. "But I don't think it was ever an issue. The issue was, is she going to bring professional standards, and she did. People judged her based on her actions, and she came through." Steve Westbrook, executive director of the Texas Sheriffs' Association, said he also has been impressed with Frasier's work. "She has shown she can definitely do the job," he said. Steady promotions Frasier grew up in San Antonio and became close to Goebler after her mother, Ruth, married the Texas Employment Commission worker when Frasier was 15. Frasier began her law enforcement career while attending Sam Houston State University, when she worked as a state corrections officer. She then moved to Travis County, where she took an entry-level job as a county jailer, then rose to become the first female lieutenant and captain in the sheriff's department. She left the department to attend law school at Florida State University, then came home to practice, representing city and county law enforcement agencies in civil rights and employment issues before running for sheriff. Frasier said both of her parents were proud when she won the election. Goebler died in 1999; Frasier's mother recently attended a department party honoring her. After she became sheriff, Frasier said she seldom felt that employees or colleagues in other counties viewed her differently. Frasier said she was well into her tenure before some of her employees confided that they had been skeptical about working for a woman and had not agreed with her life as a gay woman. "I've had sheriffs from all over the state who have expressed to me how sad they are that I'm not running again," Frasier said. "Some have come out and said, 'You've made me think about how I see the world.' " Now, she wants to spend afternoons helping her daughter with homework. She also wants to be able to attend her athletic events -- Felicia plays after-school sports -- something that her work as sheriff did not always allow. "I think I've been a good sheriff, but I think I'm an even better mother," she said.

posted by Joshua P. Angell  @ 4.1.05

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