Fort Worth police oversight director brings experience as a prosecutor

When Fort Worth’s new police oversight director Bonycle Sokunbi and Stella Cziment first met, they were adversaries on the opposite side of a courtroom.

Cziment, the head of New Orleans’ police oversight office, had her initial encounter with Sokunbi when they were both still practicing law. Cziment worked as a public defender in New Orleans at the same time Sokunbi was working in the prosecutors’ office.

“We practiced against each other in the courthouse, which normally means that we would not have much respect for each other or areas to connect,” Cziment said. “But Bonycle was a very ethical and fair prosecutor, and she had a reputation for that in the courthouse.”

Years later, the two reunited in 2018 when they were both hired to work at New Orleans’ police oversight office. Cziment started as deputy police monitor, while Sokunbi started as executive director of community relations.

“So at first, of course, we got coffee and kind of cleared the air,” Cziment said. “Made sure that we were aligned. But the funny thing is that we were extremely aligned, I think.”

In the ensuing years, the two formed a tight bond while growing their own careers. Cziment became head of the office, and Sokunbi, her right hand. While working together, the oversight office implemented changes to use of force policies, built out new community programs and offered dozens of ‘Learn Your Rights’ trainings to New Orleans residents.

Now, Sokunbi is moving on to lead Fort Worth’s police oversight office — but Cziment said her contributions to police accountability in New Orleans will outlast her tenure.

“I'm very happy for her as a person, I'm very happy for the people of Fort Worth,” she said. “I'm extremely heartbroken for our office here in New Orleans. … Bonycle has helped build this office into what it is, and has brought a whole new type of work product and perspective to this work. And she is going to be just extremely difficult to replace.”

Sokunbi will be the second-ever oversight director in the city’s history, after the office was created in 2020. The move to Fort Worth offers a chance to both spread her wings and tighten family bonds.

“I've had the opportunity in New Orleans to learn a lot,” Sokunbi said. “Fort Worth is on the cusp of greatness for several reasons. And I want to be a part of that. I have family in the metro area, Dallas-Fort Worth metro, and I want to contribute to a place where I can call home. And so I'm excited to do that in Fort Worth.”

From gene therapy to police oversight

Sokunbi has had a winding path to police oversight.

Her first dream was to be a gene therapist; the potential to help people with genetic disorders fit her desire to do good for the community. The science and math classes required to make that a reality, however, quickly changed her mind.

Then, she pursued a public relations degree at University of Alabama at Birmingham after seeing a Dove campaign focused on self-esteem for young girls. Helping girls feel better about themselves growing up, Sokunbi said, was another way to give back.

Her first job after graduating was for a nonprofit called Leading Edge Institute, which aims to change the face of leadership in Alabama by helping young women enter and succeed in their chosen career fields.

It was there, at 21 years old, that Sokunbi had an epiphany — she, too, could become a leader like the women she was mentoring. Her first step on that path was to attend law school.

“I originally wanted to go into lobbying or policy work,” Sokunbi said.

By the time she graduated for the second time, Sokunbi’s focus had shifted. She went to work as a prosecutor fresh out of law school. Her decision wasn’t a popular one.

“I was challenged a lot by people in the community of why I would choose to be a young Black girl going into prosecution,” she said. “And I strongly believe that you have to have good people on both sides of the courtroom.”

In her five-plus years in the courtroom, Sokunbi worked to be the good person on the prosecutor’s side. She challenged officers on their evidence collection procedures, taught classes on constitutional testimony, and tried drug, assault and homicide cases.

“As a prosecutor, I need to have the power to argue with the district attorney to dismiss a case, or be able to help the community hold someone who wronged them accountable,” she said.

Sokunbi’s dedication to ethical prosecution is what first stood out to Cziment all those years ago. Cziment said the skills Sokunbi honed during her time as a prosecutor also bore fruit in the oversight office because it is important to understand the context of that role in the larger legal structure.

“Ethical policing is going to result in more just and successful prosecution of the right individuals for the right crimes,” she said. “Whereas bad policing is going to result in convictions of the wrong people for the wrong type of offenses.”

Despite being an outsider to the police department, Cziment said Sokunbi was able to gain respect and cooperation from officers. Under her leadership, the police department changed the way it measured unauthorized uses of force; changed its neck restraint policy; and reimagined their policies around protests and civil disobedience.

“And these are all things that I think they were just very reluctant to come to the table about,” she said. “And Bonycle was able to get them to share her understanding of the problem, and then work constructively with her to solve it.”

The “port in a storm”

While her experience as a public defender has guided Cziment in many ways as a police oversight monitor, it did nothing to prepare her for her first autopsy. After a person died in police custody, she and Sokunbi were tasked with monitoring the autopsy of the individual.

“It was very hard for me emotionally,” Cziment said. “Bonycle being a former prosecutor, she had gone to autopsies before. And she was kind of like my spirit guide, she really held my hand through that process and helped me feel far more comfortable with an experience that was very emotionally taxing.”

It wasn’t the only time Sokunbi acted as a point of strength for her teammates; Czimenti recounted her calm strength when a New Orleans resident told them that a police officer had put blood in their toothpaste, and her persistence in watching more than 300 hours of body camera footage involving officers using tear gas on protesters.

“It's really moments like that where Bonycle shines,” she said. “She was able to be a port in the storm during the highly uncomfortable situations, during situations that were very challenging for all of us.”

Sokunbi will step into similarly uncomfortable situations in Fort Worth. As only the second oversight monitor in the city’s history, she’s tasked with continuing the work of the office’s inaugural director, Kim Neal — and going beyond it.

Former police oversight director Kim Neal speaks to residents and officers at a Community Conversations event May 9. (Cristian ArguetaSoto | Fort Worth Report)

During Neal’s tenure, residents expressed concerns about police killings and racial discrimination, and the limited powers given to the office to deal with such issues. Most recently, there has been outrage over the death of Andra Craig, a bystander who was killed during a police pursuit after a patrol vehicle slammed into his car.

And in early June, area faith leaders renewed calls for a consent decree and federal investigation into the Fort Worth Police Department, after an officer shot a suicidal woman in the hip. Consent decrees are federal court orders that require changes to the way a police department operates, including updating training and changing and creating new policies. The decrees are designed to rectify ongoing civil rights violations by a city’s police department.

New Orleans has been under a consent decree since 2013. Sokunbi said it’s ultimately up to the federal government whether a decree is needed in a specific community, but added it has been an asset to oversight in New Orleans.

“It's also just exciting, being able to learn from different practitioners,” she said. “We work with the Department of Justice regularly, I meet with the federal monitors quite regularly.”

“A sense of resetting”

Assistant city manager Valerie Washington acted as the interim oversight director following Neal’s departure last fall. In a February interview with the Report, Washington said Neal’s replacement must be someone who can build relationships with both community members and police officers alike.

“It's got to be someone who understands how to deal with multicultural communities,” Washington said. “Because there are a lot of marginalized populations who aren't comfortable with the police. You have to have someone that can come in and help understand different cultures and then help cultivate those police community relationships with them.”

Sokunbi grew up traveling frequently as part of an Air Force family. She was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, and moved to Sicily on her second birthday. She credits her upbringing and early exposure to different cultures as a reason she’s able to work and empathize with anyone.

“That's about the time that you start recognizing differences. Not only language barriers, but cultural differences and things of that nature. And so that has impacted the way that I show up in rooms … I'm a natural introvert, but it helped me listen first, and come from a place of understanding before approaching the subject. ”

In addition to replacing Neal, Sokunbi will also start work with a different police union president than her predecessor. Former union president Manny Ramirez was elected as county commissioner last November, and Lloyd Cook took his place in union leadership. Sokunbi will also work with an expanded council, after redistricting established two new seats at the dais.

“I think that we should embrace that, because it does feel like a sense of resetting,” Washington said.

At the end of the day, Sokunbi said, police oversight is about informing people so they can stand on their own two feet, articulate how they’ve been wronged and enact real change in their community. She’s been impressed by the growth of Fort Worth’s oversight office over the past three years, and she’s ready to help the city take the next step.

“Empowered access, amplified voices, and informed voices,” she said. “It's truly important to me.”

This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.