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Freeman Martin, a senior official on the Texas Division of Public Security, will function the company’s new government director starting subsequent month after the retirement of present DPS director Steve McCraw.
Martin, who started at DPS as a freeway patrol trooper in 1990, was named to the highest company submit by the Public Security Fee on Wednesday.
His tenure will start Dec. 1.
“I just can’t imagine a better choice that we have made than Freeman Martin today,” Public Security Commissioner Nelda Luce Blair mentioned. “We have a lot of confidence in you going forward, Freeman.”
Martin was named to the job after McCraw, who led the company for 15 years, introduced his retirement in August.
McCraw’s tenure was formed in recent times by DPS’ defective response to the Uvalde college taking pictures, which prompted calls for for his resignation. He additionally led the company’s position in implementing Operation Lone Star, Texas’ border crackdown. McCraw oversaw a number of main adjustments to the company, together with the deployment of state regulation enforcement officers to safe the border and the implementation of physique cameras on all DPS troopers on patrol.
Martin, a local of New Deal, a city exterior Lubbock, started his profession at DPS as a trooper in East Texas. He served as a sergeant within the Narcotics Service in Houston earlier than turning into a Texas Ranger. He was named regional commander for the central Texas area in 2014, then appointed to deputy director of DPS in 2018.
He steered DPS’ position in Operation Lone Star and led the company’s response to a number of high-profile crises, in response to DPS, together with Hurricane Harvey and the 2017 mass taking pictures at a church in Sutherland Springs. He additionally established a Texas Anti-Gang Heart in San Antonio and oversaw varied applications geared toward supporting native regulation enforcement.
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Martin has a bachelor’s diploma in prison justice and graduated from Northwestern College’s Faculty of Police Workers and Command.
The DPS director is appointed by and “directly accountable” to the Public Security Fee, whose 5 members are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate for staggered six-year phrases, in response to the place’s job itemizing.
DPS maintains statewide regulation enforcement authority and implements various administrative applications, together with driver licensing. The director is tasked with offering “strategic direction and oversight” for the company’s workforce of greater than 11,000 workers, and managing a biennial price range of over $2 billion, in response to the itemizing.
