Biography
Mara Youngdahl was one of the "Moody Park Three," members of People United to Fight Police Brutality charged with felony riot over the May 7, 1978 Moody Park rebellion in Houston. The uprising erupted from outrage over the killing of José Campos Torres — a young Mexican-American man beaten by Houston police and thrown into Buffalo Bayou to drown in 1977, whose killers received only one year's probation and a $1 fine. The three co-defendants — Travis Morales, Mara Youngdahl, and Thomas Hirschi — faced more than 140 years in prison combined. At their 1979 trial they openly defended the rebellion as a justified response to police terror, and were acquitted.
