Margo Frasier

Frasier, a lawyer,^[1] received a J.D. from the Florida State University College of Law.^[2]

She joined the Travis County Sheriff's Office as a sheriff's deputy,^[3] and eventually became the office's first female lieutenant and the first female captain.^[4] She was subsequently elected to two four-year terms as sheriff of Travis County,^[4] serving from 1997 through 2004.^[3] The sheriff's office had some 1,200 employees at the time of Fraiser's tenure.^[5] Fraiser, a Democrat, was the first woman and the first openly gay person in that post.^[4] She was also the first gay or lesbian person elected sheriff in the United States.^[6]

During her tenure, Fraiser modernized the sheriff's office through greater use of technology and dealt with overcrowding and code violations at the county jail.^[4] During her tenure, the sheriff's office put cameras and computers in patrol cars for the first time.^[7] After leaving the sheriff's office, Fraiser became a professor of criminal justice at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas.^[2] She later returned to Austin to become a consultant at a firm that advises law enforcement agencies.^[8] Fraiser also testified as an expert witness in court cases.^[3]

In January 2011, Fraiser became police monitor for the City of Austin.^[1] She was the fourth person to hold this post.^[8] As police monitor, Frasier had oversight over citizen complaints against the Austin Police Department.^[1] She retired from the Office of Police Monitor in January 2017,^[8] and later that year was appointed by U.S. District Judge Lance Africk to serve as the lead monitor overseeing the Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office under the terms of a 2013 settlement of a case between the Orleans sheriff's offices and jail inmates over poor conditions at the Orleans Parish Prison.^[9]

Career

Personal life

References

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