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<\/p>\nThe case is a snapshot into an ongoing debate in Austin about when violent offenders should be sent to prison instead of being sent to rehabilitation programs. <\/p>\n
TRAVIS COUNTY, Texas \u2014 Travis County Sheriff\u2019s Office Sgt. Laura Mabry has spent most of her career balancing motherhood of 15- and 11-year-old sons with daytime patrols in West Austin. On May 9, 2025, two days from Mother\u2019s Day, she was thinking about the upcoming family holiday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I thought was just a normal Friday at nine o\u2019clock in Steiner Ranch wasn\u2019t,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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She pulled into the parking lot of a Randall\u2019s on RM 620 and spotted a stolen GMC Denali.<\/p>\n
She approached the truck \u2013 a teen and another man standing by it \u2013 when the teen jumped into the driver\u2019s seat.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI give him commands. ‘Don\u2019t do it. Come over here and talk to me,’\u201d Mabry recalled.<\/p>\n
Mabry leapt onto the running board of the truck and the two get into a struggle as he presses the gas \u2013 all seen on her body camera footage.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOK, dude, stop!\u201d she yelled.<\/p>\n
The encounter lasts several seconds before the truck crashes.<\/p>\n
Court documents say \u2013 and video shows \u2013 the driver, Graham Freeman, who was 17 at the time, then grabbed a Glock 19 handgun wedged between the driver\u2019s seat and center console, and the gun fired, the bullet hitting him in the leg but sparing Mabry.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wanted to get away, and it didn\u2019t matter that my life was going to be collateral damage to that. And that was very obvious to me,\u201d Mabry said.<\/p>\n
Authorities charged Freeman with four felonies, including aggravated assault on a public servant \u2013 crimes for which he faced up to life behind bars.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Freeman remained in jail for 49 days before he was released on bond.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Less than two weeks later, authorities say he carried out another violent crime that led to an aggravated robbery charge when a man traveled to Pflugerville to see a woman he met online \u2013 and Freeman robbed him at gunpoint when he arrived.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, I didn\u2019t know he had gotten out of jail, much less gotten out of jail and had already committed another crime. And also, I was just worried for whoever that victim was,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
This case is a snapshot into an ongoing debate in Austin into a larger criminal justice question: When should violent offenders be sent to prison \u2013 or when should prosecutors place them in rehabilitation programs that more quickly get them back into the community?<\/p>\n
\nGarza: Not light on crime <\/p>\n
Mabry said she heard nothing about her own case for months \u2013 until a prosecutor informed her in February that the Travis County District Attorney’s Office was looking to resolve it.<\/p>\n
She said she argued for at least a prison sentence of a year, but prosecutors said they were considering probation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMy fear, and I told this to the ADA [Assistant District Attorney], was my concern about there being an unnecessary victim if he is allowed to just go back out into the public,” she said.<\/p>\n
Mabry said she didn\u2019t hear back again until a victim counselor informed her last month that the deal would be finalized the following week and that Freeman would receive five years probation \u2013 a sentence that did include a 90-day in-custody treatment program in a state prison.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI just felt based on his actions after being released on bond, and then committing another crime, were indicative that consequences didn\u2019t affect him,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Travis County District Attorney Jos\u00e9 Garza said he believes that the sentence was appropriate \u2013 and rejected the idea that the outcome demonstrates a light-on-crime approach by his office. He said that Freeman spent about 16 months behind bars awaiting the outcome of his case, will be a convicted felon, and will be closely supervised during his probation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like it was an appropriate outcome for the safety of our community,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez would not specifically say whether she thinks the outcome in these cases was appropriate, but said in a statement that her department does its best to protect victims of all crimes and help them attain justice.<\/p>\n
Freeman\u2019s attorney said he also believes the sentence was appropriate given his client\u2019s age \u2013 he is about to turn 19 \u2013 and probation conditions.<\/p>\n
However, Garza said he was disappointed that Mabry did not appear to have been fully informed of how prosecutors planned to resolve the case.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny time we have a victim who is not happy with an outcome, the first thing we examine is what was our communication with that victim. And in this instance, it is pretty clear to me that we had room for improvement,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mabry is now back on the street, thankful that she wasn\u2019t seriously injured or killed that day 13 months ago. This is what she told Freeman on the day he was sentenced.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI survived,\u201d she said. \u201cThat does not diminish the seriousness of what happened. My life mattered then, and it matters now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The case is a snapshot into an ongoing debate in Austin about when violent offenders should be sent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366823,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":["post-366822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}