The Public Safety Commission has unanimously approved Freeman Martin to lead the Texas Department of Public Safety, tapping a top lieutenant of outgoing Director Steve McCraw.

Here’s what to know about the incoming head of the state law enforcement agency:

Martin, 56, is senior deputy director of DPS, where he has a “crucial role” in planning, directing, managing and overseeing the agency’s activities and operations, according to his staff biography.

DPS has more than 11,000 employees and a $3.5 billion biennial budget.

His career at DPS began as a Highway Patrol trooper in 1990. He has been a Highway Patrol corporal, narcotics service sergeant and a sergeant, lieutenant, captain and major with the Texas Rangers, the agency’s elite investigative division. He also has been regional commander for the Central Texas Region and deputy director of DPS, a post he was appointed to in 2018.

He has expertise in executive protection, violent crime prevention operations, intelligence, counterterrorism and homeland security, and he led the DPS response to the Sutherland Springs mass shooting, Hurricane Harvey and Operation Lone Star.

Martin established a Texas Anti-Gang Center in San Antonio, helped develop the Texas Rangers Major Crime Scene Response Team and runs a number of initiatives to support local law enforcement agencies.

He has a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and is a graduate of Northwestern University’s School of Police Staff and Command.

The Public Safety Commission, which oversees DPS, conducted a national search after McCraw announced his retirement in August.

The five-member commission is appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Texas Senate. At a Sept. 6 meeting, the commission set minimum requirements for the position, opened a four-week window for resumes and letters of interest through Oct. 4, and created a subcommittee to vet applicants and make recommendations.

The subcommittee selected three finalists for in-person and virtual interviews conducted Oct. 16 and Oct. 24. At its meeting Wednesday, commissioners deliberated privately for nearly 2½ hours before returning to announce Martin as its undisputed choice.

His appointment is effective Dec. 1. He will be sworn in the following day at a ceremony at DPS headquarters.

McCraw, whose retirement takes effect next month, led the department for the past 15 years, calling it “the greatest honor of my life.”

He rose from Highway Patrol trooper in 1977 to narcotics agent in 1983, when he left DPS to join the FBI. McCraw left the federal agency in 2004 to become Texas’ homeland security director until he was named to lead DPS in 2009.

McCraw was heavily scrutinized over the police response to the May 2022 Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, including the inaction of dozens of DPS troopers who responded. Officers from multiple agencies waited more than an hour to enter a classroom to confront and kill the gunman who killed 19 students and two teachers.

McCraw was not in Uvalde at the time. He later called the police response an “abject failure” but resisted calls to step down. McCraw blamed the delayed police response on the local school police chief.

In his retirement note to staff, McCraw didn’t say what’s next for him. Instead, he expressed his “deep pride and heartfelt gratitude” to his employees.

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — It’s no secret that if you’re a renter in Texas, you don’t have the upper hand.

“It’s basically very friendly to landlords to be able to punish tenants, to evict tenants, and so it creates this, what I think is an overly favorable environment to landlords,” Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee said.

When problems go without repair for months, the law says you still cannot withhold rent, and there are hoops you have to jump through to hold your landlord accountable.

Through Action 13’s Renters’ Rights, we hear about these problems often.

So, what can be done?

It’s a long process and rare for a city or county in Texas to step in and hold negligent landlords accountable.

Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee is determined to change that. He says he knows what it’s like.

“Like many other folks in Harris County, I came up in a working-class family, and part of my upbringing was living in an apartment complex. This was a complex that had units that were routinely infested with roaches, that had cars being broken into all the time. My mother’s car was stolen multiple times from this apartment complex,” Menefee explained.

He’s seen it and wants to stop it.

“Here in the state of Texas, there just aren’t laws on the books that allow us the opportunity to go after landlords,” Menefee said.

He says that come January when the legislature reconvenes, he’ll be in Austin, pushing for a fix. “What I’d like to see is a law that allows the government to step in and immediately call these folks to account, whether that’s through an administrative procedure, through fines, through a lawsuit, anything to push them in the direction of doing the right thing,” Menefee explained.

His office found a creative way to sue a local complex earlier this year.

The Palms on Rolling Creek in north Harris County had severe sewage issues for years. Months after the lawsuit was filed, the owners did make progress in fixing it.

Menefee is putting negligent landlords on notice, and you can help.

“My ask to you is if you are living in an apartment complex that is not treating you right, or you know someone who is, have them report that to us and also reach out to your local, state representative or state senator,” Menefee said.

They need to know about the problems to help them make their case for why they believe these laws need to change.

“I understand your experience. I have lived through that myself. My family has lived through that. We hear you, and we are going to keep working on those issues,” Menefee said.

For more news updates, follow Courtney Carpenter on Facebook, X and Instagram.

2024 Texas Hall of Fame Invite

• November 20-22, 2024
• Where: Lee and Joe Jamail Swimming Center — Austin, TX
• When: 10 am CT prelims/6 pm CT finals
• Participating Teams: Pitt, Stanford, Texas (host), USC, Wisconsin, BYU, Cal Poly
• Meet Info
• Live Results
• Results on Meet Mobile: “Texas Hall of Fame Swimming Invite”
• Day 1 Prelims Live Recap | Day 1 Finals

The Texas Longhorns entered the summer with a lot of weaknesses on paper that needed to be addressed, and via the addition of high profile transfers and international recruits, they have addressed many of those.

The big question mark, though, was the breaststroke leg and whether the Longhorns had someone good enough to challenge for an NCAA title.

The group was led last season by 5th year Jake Foster, who swam 51.22 at a dual meet, and Will Scholtz, who was 52.09 at Big 12s. 52.0 is a nice time by almost any measure, but for a team hoping to climb several rungs on a ladder and challenge for an NCAA title, it wasn’t going to be enough.

The comments read things like “where are the Longhorns going to find a true breaststroker,” referencing the fact that Texas didn’t have a swimmer finish higher than 16th at NCAAs in the 100 breast last year.

But on Thursday morning, they may have found their guy as Nate Germonprez, now a sophomore, turned a corner with a 50.39.

That makes him the 7th-best performer in the history of the event with the 15th best performance ever in a flat-start 100 yard breaststroke. Every time ranked ahead of him was done at a season-ending championship, making Germonprez’s swim the best mid-season time in history.

Top 10 Performers all-Time, Men’s 100 SCY Breaststroke

1. Liam Bell, Cal – 49.53 (2024 NCAAs)
2. Ian Finnerty, Indiana – 49.69 (2018 NCAAs)
3. Max McHugh, Minnesota – 49.90 (2022 NCAAs)
4. Caeleb Dressel, Florida – 50.03 (2018 SECs)
5. Kevin Cordes, Arizona – 50.04 (2014 NCAAs)
6. Carsten Vissering, USC – 50.30 (2019 NCAAs)
7. Nate Germonprez, Texas – 50.39 (2024 Texas Invite)
8. Caspar Corbeau, Texas – 50.49 (2022 NCAAs)
9. Van Mathias, Indiana – 50.57 (2023 NCAAs)
10. Brian Benzig, Towson – 50.59 (2024 NCAAs)

Germonprez is a bit of a paradox as a swimmer. He was a very good breaststroker in high school, winning an NCSA title in the 100 breaststroke in 2023. But he was so versatile that his 52.59 as a high school senior was almost overlooked, when in most classes that would make him a big ‘breaststroke’ signing.

We wrote several articles and did interviews in tribute to his versatility (here and here, for example).

He didn’t even swim a breaststroke race at the Olympic Trials, instead opting for the 50 free (53rd) and 200 IM (12th). He would later swim the 100 free (49.46), 200 IM (1:58.11), and the 100 breaststroke (1:00.48) at the Austin Futures meet, winning and going best times in each. His 100 breaststroke time would have put him into the semifinals at Trials.

Is he a real breaststroker? He’s not a pure breaststroker, if that’s what we mean when we say “real,” which is understandable because for most of swimming history, breaststrokers were sort of a different breed.

But he broke the school record of Caspar Corbeau (50.49), who is most certainly primarily a breaststroker (though he can sprint a little bit too).

When Germonprez and Modglin both committed to Texas, it was fun to daydream about what that tandem of versatility could bloom into in the college ranks, and now we’re seeing it happen. As much as Texas needed guys like Chris Guiliano and Kacper Mawiuk and Hubert Kos to move back into the national title picture this quickly, they really needed a breatstroker, and now they have one.