Leader of Lonestar Fugitive Taskforce takes on new role of Director of Courthouse Security

The assassination attempt of a Travis County judge is leading to new security implementations for courthouses statewide. On Monday the state's first director of court security gets to work.

In 2015 Judge Julie Kocurek was ambushed in the driveway of her home. She was severely injured-- losing a finger as she used her arm to shield her face from flying bullets and glass.

Court documents revealed officials knew a threat was made against her life two weeks prior, but Kocurek was left in the dark.

In January of this year, Travis County commissioners awarded her $500,000 settlement and legislators created a courthouse security act named in her honor.

"That has always been a primary mission of the marshals service protection of the judiciary,” said Hector Gomez.

Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal Hector Gomez will oversee the orders of the bill as the newly-created position of director of courthouse security.

He's retiring after a 31-year career with the marshals service to take on the role. We met with him at his office which happens to be in one of the most secure courthouses in the state.

"The first thing we're going to look at is evaluating, I would like to evaluate and audit all the courthouses in the State of Texas. We have different, in my experiences with the marshals service traveling through many courthouses in the State of Texas, there are various levels of security, some very minimal, some very elaborate. We don't have any consistency,” said Gomez.

Gomez says there is an overall lack of planning and training. That will all change as the act requires the implementation of courthouse security committees. All involved must be certified in courthouse security.

Gomez says the Kocurek case highlighted weaknesses here locally.

"It's a posture that I recommend severely that law enforcement become more proactive throughout the state when it comes to becoming aware of inappropriate communications, threats,” said Gomez. “We're going to have to manage these threats. We're going to have to manage these inappropriate communications mitigate them or proactively monitor them."

Gomez, whose Lonestar Fugitive Taskforce tracked and arrested the main suspect in the Kocurek case, says he is anxious to meet with the judge as soon as he settles into his new role.

“I certainly want to hear her point of view because she's going to be the only one in recent memory. She's going to speak from her experiences, from her concerns, her input as to what could've been implemented, provided to her, those things I'm going to listen to her,” said Gomez.

Gomez starts on Monday.