CommentsPUZZLING--In a period of increased attention to police violence and the deaths of unarmed young men at the hands of officers, the nomination of Phlunte Riddle (photo above) to a state board in California is puzzling.
On the surface, Riddle, a former Pasadena police official, adjunct instructor in sociology and legislative staffer, appears to have qualifications that align with being a member of the Juvenile Parole Board. Governor Newsom appointed Riddle last October. Her nomination still awaits approval by the state Senate.
But a closer look at Riddle’s record reveals troubling issues that, in a position of judgment or authority over the lives of others, could amount to a big step backward on the rights of women and LGBTQ people, including youth.
Riddle was originally named in a federal lawsuit by the family of Kendrec McDade following the killing of the unarmed 19-year-old by Pasadena police on March 24, 2012. That night two police officers responded to a call that a Black youth had stolen a backpack and was carrying a gun. In the case of McDade, a football player at Azusa High School who went on to attend Citrus College and was visiting his dad in Pasadena that weekend, both those reports proved false.
Police responded and, seeing McDade, chased the teenager. The officers did not announce their pursuit or turn on their lights, which would have triggered their on-board camera to capture the proceedings. The two Pasadena police officers shot McDade seven times, with one sitting in the police vehicle and firing at close range.
McDade (photo left) had no weapon and once handcuffed and dying on the ground, tried to talk to the officers, his family’s federal lawsuit claims. “Why did they shoot me?” McDade asked the ambulance driver. He died at a hospital 90 minutes later.
National outrage erupted over McDade’s killing as it echoed the shooting death just one month earlier of Trayvon Martin, a Black youth in Florida who had just turned 17 when he was by a vigilante while walking home from buying Skittles at a 7-11.
In a press conference after the McDade shooting, police spokeswoman Riddle denied that McDade was left for a prolonged period of time to die, nor did she correct the record to report the fact that McDade was unarmed. In the original filing of the federal lawsuit, McDade's parents cited Riddle or shaming their son and perpetuating the racist policies of the police department. And by being quick to peddle untruths that cast suspicion on unarmed victims but being slow to retract falsehoods or to announce facts that confirmed their good character or innocence.
Neither of the officers who shot and killed McDade faced punishment despite the weighty questions that dogged their misuse of deadly force. The Pasadena Police Department ruled the officers “acted within policy” and L.A. District Attorney Jackie Lacey determined they acted in “lawful self-defense.” The McDade family settled their wrongful death lawsuit against Pasadena for $1 million in 2014.
In a reminder of the long and continuing shadow over the community cast by misconduct in the McDade case, one of the officers involved in his killing responded four years later to the scene where Pasadena police on September 30, 2016, subdued Reginald Thomas, a Black man, with a knee to the neck. Thomas died that night with officers atop him. Riddle’s name appears in a June 2020 lawsuit filed in Superior Court alleging civil-rights violations in the Thomas case and a pattern of efforts by Pasadena police to discredit victims of killing by officers.
But justification for police killing is not the only aspect of Riddle’s background that raises troubling questions. In 2013 Riddle joined the faculty at Biola University in La Mirada. As the school faced protests by students over teachings that stigmatized and dehumanized LGBT people, Riddle signed onto the evangelical Christian school’s policies anyway.
Biola’s Code of Conduct insists on “biblical guidelines” that require “abstaining from premarital relations, adultery, fornication, pornography as well as homosexual conduct.” The Biola handbook states that students “failing to abide by these standards” may be liable for “instant suspension or expulsion.” Biola confirmed at the time that openly LGBT people had to leave the campus.
As late as 2015, The Code of Conduct at Biola University actually attacks transgender people and women’s right to access reproductive healthcare. It asserts the only “legitimate and acceptable context for a sexual relationship” is a “heterosexual union between one genetic male and one genetic female.” Insisting that “life begins at conception,” the school takes a hard line against women’s right to choose. “We abhor the destruction of innocent human life through abortion on demand,” states Biola’s website.
Longtime advocate for Black lives and LGBT civil rights Ron Buckmire, a blogger and member of East Area Progressive Democrats, first alerted Californians to Riddle’s checkered record on equity issues in a 2015 article.
Riddle rebutted the article’s criticisms. “I am appalled by this ‘guilt by association’ she told a reporter. “These claims could not be further from the truth as to where I stand on the critical issues of choice and equality. I fully support a woman’s right to choose and believe politicians shouldn’t be making a woman’s reproductive health decisions for her.”
But the fact that Riddle signed onto Biola’s policies and failed to counteract them, even as students were standing up against reparative therapy that was outlawed by California in 2012, did not resolve questions about her decision to continue teaching there.
In these times of public reawakening to bias and bigotry and resistance to police violence, a nominee to a state board overseeing the fate of youth in the criminal justice system needs to show utmost devotion to the equity of all Californians. “California for ALL” is, in fact, the slogan of this governor and his administration. An appointment like Riddle’s raises disturbing and divisive questions about consistency in upholding and protecting the rights of women, LGBTQ people, and Black youth, who remain disproportionately subjected to police surveillance and violence. The governor owes it to all Californians to reconsider this selection.
(Mary A. Fischer is a longtime investigative journalist and an advocate on justice issues in Eastside LA and surrounding communities.)
-cw
