SACRAMENTO, CA (KMJ) – ‘Gavin’s Law’ will move forward.
Powerful testimony from Gavin Gladding’s wife, Susan, as she testified in front of the Assembly Public Safety Committee, Tuesday morning, in Sacramento.
Susan Gladding was there with Assembly-member Jim Patterson, family, friends and supporters of AB-582, fighting for harsher penalties for hit and run drivers.
Her husband Gavin, a Clovis Unified Vice Principal, was struck and killed by a hit and run driver, last September.
Supporters of Gavin’s Law say the hit and run driver, Rogelio Alvarez Maravilla, was suggested to be drunk at the time, and received too lenient a sentence, three years behind bars.
Court documents say 18 year-old Maravilla and his girlfriend were returning from a party when he struck Gladding with his truck, then left the scene.
“The way that the California Law is written today incentivises the driver to flee the scene, rather than to stop and to assist the individual that they have critically injured with their vehicle,” said Susan Gladding, during her testimony.
Assembly-member Patterson is behind the AB-582, the legislation is co-authored by three Assembly members and two state senators including Republican Andreas Borgeas, who was at a rally on Friday at Keith Tice Park.
Patterson said the Chair of the Assembly Public Safety Committee had recommend a ‘no’ vote, but it changed its mind.
.@GavinsLaw will move forward thanks to powerful testimony from Susan Gladding. She changed the minds of the committee. Tearful members committed to work on amending the bill and pledged support it. A monumental day. pic.twitter.com/mPc1ibEc32
— Jim Patterson (@JimPatterson559) March 19, 2019
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“The Gladding family told their story, and absolutely changed the minds of the majority on that committee, I sat here and saw it happen,” said Assembly-member Patterson, after the hearing.
“It is going forward, and I, my hope is that either the bill as it’s drafted or some version of this bill will actually get passed and, and it will be in honor of my husband,” said Gladding, speaking outside of the Assembly hearing, afterwards.
“One member actually looked into the law – and discovered, sure enough, there’s a loophole. That changed the entire attitude. We now have a period of time to have the bill reconsidered, I have commitments from the chair and from members that we will find a way to close this loophole, and so when we next come back in front of this committee there will be a unanimous bi-partisan agreement that will, I think, pass Gavin’s Law,” said Assembly-member Patterson.
“We hope that if it happens in the first year,” said Patterson, “and the Governor signs it — it goes into effect that January.”
Click to listen to the report by KMJ’s Liz Kern:
