Today we’d like to introduce you to Sara Mokuria.
Sara, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Wow so much to say, but I will keep it short and say I got where I am through a lot of failing, experimenting, learning, not giving up grace, and community support. I met Collette Flanagan in 2013 after her son was brutally murdered by a Dallas police officer, Clark Staller (who still works for the Dallas police department today) through a mutual friend. Collette transformed her grief into determination and decided we needed a national platform for families of victims to have a voice and role in dismantling oppressive policing systems. She asked John Fullinwider and me to help implement her vision in creating Mothers Against Police Brutality. Since then we have been leading the charge to change deadly force policies in Dallas and throughout the U.S., lifting up families who have lost loved ones to police violence; and reimagining public safety, divesting from police departments and investing in the health, housing, household incomes, human rights, creative arts, and overall well-being of our communities.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Not at all. The police violence that we’re witnessing today is not new, but the scale of resistance and dialogue locally and globally is unprecedented. This moment is one we have been working towards for years. It has often been a lonely fight. Finally, there is a broader acknowledgment that policing is violent and discriminatory and that we can imagine a world beyond policing. Our work comes with more defeats than victories. We often work for years for small budgetary or policy changes, but we are part of a long and strong beautiful struggle.
Please tell us about Mothers Against Police Brutality.
We believe that those closest to the problem are closest to the solution and too often farthest from the decision-making. For this reason, we base our work on the lived experience of families. MAPB is creating policy solutions that are informed by the experiences of families with direct lived experience of police brutality and in a human rights framework. We are building, supporting, and engaging a growing group of families, community organizers, lawyers, public officials, and everyday people across the country interested in transforming policing and the criminal justice system. Recently MAPB created the MAPB Legal Defense Fund with the goal of building a complementary network of attorneys who 1) have the skills and desire to represent families victimized by police violence, and 2) are oriented toward litigation as advocacy and working with the movement cooperatively. The first case we have supported is DA Kim Gardner’s suit against St. Louis using a law established to fight the KKK. We are currently working on a campaign around the county and city budgets in Dallas to divest from policing and invest in alternative non-police solutions and long-term investments to remedy the generations of harms caused by racism. To this end, we crafted ten policy solutions, we are part of leadership in the In Defense for Black Lives Coalition and Our City Our Future. When Botham Jean was murdered in his home in 2019, the Dallas Police Department instituted a policy long advocated for my MAPB to drug test all police involved in excessive and deadly force cases. Annually we host the Clinton Allen Speak Out Against Police Brutality and Injustice, where families share their stories of grief and struggle and the broader community participates in creative political education workshops on police brutality. We work with a network of 200 families and informally provide campaign support on navigating the system, individual case support, and connection with other families and resources.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Not paying bills and cooking all my meals! lol In all seriousness my favorite childhood memories are from when I had the opportunity to be a child– before my father’s murder. One of my favorite memories is hot summer nights when we would pull a mattress into the backyard and sleep as a family under the stars. Thanks for asking. I hadn’t thought about that in along time.
Contact Info:
- Address: 1910 Pacific Ave #9550
- Website: www.mothersagainstpolicebrutality.org
- Email: info@mapbdallas.com
- Instagram: fightingmothers
- Facebook: mothers against police brutality
- Twitter: fightingmothers
Suggest a story: VoyageDallas is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
