Susanna Gallun

A 62-year-old man is in the hospital with a life-altering brain injury because Travis County prosecutors dismissed every charge against his attacker. The @statesman published 1,500 words today arguing Texas needs more mental health beds to prevent attacks like this. They're probably right. But they let DA Jose Garza reframe his own office's failures as a state funding problem. Mentally ill vagrant Daniel Vasquez had ten cases in Travis County before the library attack. He punched a kid's mom on a bus, attacked a bystander who tried to protect them, bloodied a bus driver's mouth, spit in a cop's face. Every time, he walked without a trial. Garza says incarceration would've been "short-lived and ineffective." In fact, short, predictable jail time for violent behavior can establish deterrence, even among the mentally ill. Here's what his office actually could have done: Prosecuted the felony harassment of a public servant -- spitting in a cop's face, 2-10 years. Even a short sentence covers the months before the library attack. Prosecuted the child endangerment felony -- trying to kick an 11-year-old on a bus, 180 days to 2 years. Dismissed to "pre-trial diversion." Prosecuted the terroristic threat against a public servant -- also 2-10 years. Dismissed. Stacked the four assault charges instead of dismissing all of them. Used them as leverage for a plea with real supervision or jail time. If Garza's office believed Vasquez was truly incompetent, the move was involuntary commitment or competency restoration, not dismissal. But Vasquez completed the county's own diversion program, met all requirements, and graduated. He was competent enough to do that. Dismissal gave him neither accountability nor treatment. It gave him nothing. Short, predictable jail time for violent behavior can establish deterrence, even among the mentally ill. Diversion is always of highly tenuous efficacy for repeated violent offenses. And in Vasquez's case, as in most cases, it didn't work. Garza's office didn't try the alternative, which is prosecution according to laws on the books. They dismissed felony after felony, watched him cycle back through, and did nothing. Now a man is fighting for his life and the DA -- the person responsible for prosecuting crime in Travis County -- is blaming everyone else for the violence that's defined his tenure.