Her husband was killed by a hit-and-run driver. She found the strength to ‘move a mountain’
Susan Gladding was never one to take on causes. Never one to make public speeches. Or serve a source of strength and inspiration to others.
Those traits belonged to her husband, Gavin, a well-liked Clovis Unified administrator and former Peace Corps volunteer. Susan, despite his frequent encouragement, preferred to stay in the background. Where she always felt more comfortable.
“Gavin was a natural in front of people,” Susan Gladding said. “That’s where he thrived.”
That all changed following the tragic events of Sept. 16, 2018, when Gavin Gladding was stuck from behind by a pickup truck while running on the shoulder of Friant Road shortly before 6 a.m.
The driver fled the scene, and Gladding died of his injuries after being rushed by ambulance to Community Regional Medical Center.
Before turning himself in to police five days later, 18-year-old Rogelio Alvarez Maravilla replaced a broken windshield and side mirror and deleted potentially incriminating text messages, according to court documents.
The unlicensed Alvarez Maravilla received a three-year jail sentence — one shy of the maximum penalty for hit-and-run fatalities under California law — but only served 12 months. He is already a free man.
Legal loophole
Compounding the loss of her partner and father of their two children, Susan Gladding couldn’t wrap her head around the light sentence. Especially when she found out about a legal loophole that practically incentivizes drunken drivers to flee the scene of an accident in order to avoid facing harsher DUI penalties.
But how can one voice, or even one family’s voice, effect change?
“It’s funny, but I remember looking at the Sierras and thinking, ‘What do you do about this? This is like moving a mountain,’ ” Susan Gladding recalled. “That’s how the system is. Even though I’ve got all this frustration, what am I going to do?”
It would’ve been easy for Gladding to curl up into a ball and shut out the world. Instead, with support from Gavin’s family, her tight circle of friends and Fresno Assemblyman Jim Patterson, Susan is honoring her late husband’s memory by fighting for victims like her.
Gavin’s Law, which would increase penalties for hit-and-run drivers who flee an accident that results in injury or death, passed the Assembly floor by a 66-3 vote on Jan. 27 and will soon be taken up by the Senate.
The future of AB 582 is far from assured since it goes against the grain. In recent years Sacramento lawmakers have worked to reduce the state’s overcrowded prisons by decreasing criminal sentencing.
Powerful voice
But the bill would never have made it this far without Susan Gladding’s powerful testimony before the Assembly Public Safety Committee in March 2019.
Gladding’s words brought many in the room to tears, swaying the votes of several members of the Democratic-controlled committee not normally inclined to support legislation that enhances criminal penalties or advances a Republican-sponsored bill.
During the hearing, Chairman Reginald Jones-Sawyer (D-Los Angeles) credited Gladding with “basically turning” the committee and called her “the most powerful speaker for your cause … that we ever had.”
“I’ve been in a lot of committee meetings and presented a lot of material, and I’ve never seen anything like that before,” said Patterson, who authored the bill but has since taken on two Democratic colleagues as co-sponsors.
“What we found out is Susan can really change hearts and minds and actually change votes.”
Gavin and Susan Gladding met in Atlanta while working for the same environmental engineering company. He was from Fresno, a Bullard High graduate, and she was from Pennsylvania. They started dating during the three-month project and maintained a long-distance relationship for two years before eventually moving to Fresno and getting married in 2004.
The couple has two children: 12-year-old Carter and 9-year-old Isla.
Since Gavin’s death, Susan has worked to set a good example for her two kids and honor their father by not letting their lives go “off track” as a result of his tragic end.
“A lot of things that I’m doing are just a product of knowing how he would want us to continue to live,” she said. “I feel like we’re doing really well because we didn’t let ourselves sit in (grief), and we’re still not sitting in that. We’re trying to live life for him. I feel a sense of peace, honestly, with a lot of this.”
‘See it through’
Susan Gladding, along with Gavin’s parents, Gary and Rita, and sister Gabrielle Ruby have made four trips to Sacramento to attend Assembly hearings and witness votes.
That process starts all over again now that Gavin’s Law has advanced to the Senate. Meaning that Susan, no matter how effective she is at it, will again have to overcome her greatest fear of speaking in front of a large group.
“We’re going to see this thing through,” she said.
Family friend Alicia Montoya marveled at Susan’s strength and determination in the toughest of situations.
“She is showing her children that their father is living through her, and it’s beautiful to see,” Montoya said. “She’s showing them how to move on, to open up, to step out of her normal comfort zone and not be afraid. That’s what this has done for her. It’s shown her that she’s way stronger than she ever imagined.”
Patterson added, “Susan has just been so stellar through all of this despite having to re-live it. It’s obvious this is a couple that was deeply in love, and this is a continuing part of that love story.”
In addition to Gavin’s Law, Susan started the Gavin Gladding Foundation with the aim of providing college scholarships for area students as well as grants for environmental education. A golf tournament in May raised $40,000.
For the past 17 months, the 42-year-old has juggled the demands of motherhood, her career working for a renewable energy company and promoting Gavin’s Law.
It’s been a lot for anyone to handle, even though Gavin Gladding always knew his wife was capable of leading causes, giving public speeches and inspiring others.
Now Susan Gladding knows it, too.
“I feel like he’s looking down on me saying, ‘Told you so,’ ” she said. “I feel like he’s giving me strength that I didn’t have before.”
This story was originally published February 8, 2020 at 5:45 AM with the headline "Her husband was killed by a hit-and-run driver. She found the strength to ‘move a mountain’."
