Fresno promoter lost his sister to a hit-and-run. Now, he’s helping revive Gavin’s Law

Mike Osegueda remembers Gavin Gladding’s death in 2018 like most people living in Fresno at the time recall it — as a news story about a senseless and shocking hit-and-run and a family looking for justice in their loss.

“It was really tragic and really terrible, but you don’t really understand how terrible until it happens to your family,” Osegueda said in testimony before the California Assembly’s Public Safety Committee in Sacramento on Tuesday.

The well-known Fresno food event promoter joined Gladding’s mother, Rita Gladding, to speak in support of AB 582, the so-called Gavin’s Law, which would increase the criminal penalties for leaving the scene of an accident and changes a loophole that benefits DUI drivers who leave the scene of an accident. The driver who killed Gladding was sentenced to three years in prison, but only served 13 months.

Osegueda was called to testify after his sister Courtney Osegueda was killed by a hit-and-run driver while leaving work in Oakland in February.

“A speeding driving crossed into the wrong lane and hit my sister so hard that she came out of her shoes,” he told the committee.

“She was left there to die. The driver didn’t stop to see if she was OK, didn’t even have the compassion to do that.”

The driver has been identified by police, but has yet to be arrested, Osegueda said. If she is, she will face a maximum sentence of just four years.

“Is that fair for my sister’s life? Is that fair for our family grief?” he said.

“This is an instance where the scales of justice just seem out of whack.”

Introduced by Assemblymember Jim Patterson, R-Fresno, in 2019, AB 582 would increase penalties for fatal hit-and-run crashes from the current four years to a minimum of six years.

Tuesday’s hearing was a restart to the legislative process. Though the bill passed nearly unanimously out of the committee last year, it failed to make it out of Senate Public Safety Committee, by just one vote.

Support for a bill that increases criminal sentences is almost unheard of in this committee, but several Democrat members shared overwhelming support for Gavin’s Law, Patterson’s office said.

“Gavin’s Law has overwhelming bipartisan support and that was never more clear than at the hearing,” Patterson said in a statement. “Anyone who reads the law sees there is a loophole that creates an incentive for drivers to leave after hitting someone, instead of doing the right thing and potentially helping to save a life.”

AB 589 was passed out of the committee and is now headed to the Assembly Appropriations Committee for hearings in the next few weeks.

“This is the beginning of a long journey through the legislative process and we have some big hurdles ahead of us in committees that are less interested in fixing this clear perversion in the law,” Patterson said.

This story was originally published April 8, 2021 at 5:00 AM.