Travis Morales

Travis Morales 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 defended the rebellion as a response to police violence. Contemporary reporting in the May 1979 Revolution states that the jury returned guilty verdicts on May 11: Travis Morales and Mara Youngdahl were convicted of felony riot, and Thomas Hirschi of misdemeanor riot. Travis Morales received five years of probation and a $5,000 fine. These were noncustodial dispositions; the report does not establish the duration of earlier detention or any later revocation of probation.

Revolutionary Worker reported the May 11, 1979 Moody Park Three verdict and May 14 sentences in Houston. Morales and Youngdahl were convicted of felony riot and received five years’ probation plus $5,000 and $4,000 fines respectively; Hirschi was convicted of misdemeanor riot and fined $1,000. The article explicitly recounts repeated arrests of all three but supplies no full custody periods. Probation and fines are not prison terms. Revolutionary Worker, vol. 1 no. 3, May 18, 1979, original PDF page 11. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/periodicals/revolutionary-worker/rw-1-3.pdf#page=11