Steps away from where 21-year-old Ron Settles died 40 years ago while in the custody of the Signal Hill Police Department, family and friends gathered in a spirit of forgiveness last weekend to honor his memory.
“Ron Settles is Signal Hill’s George Floyd,” Signal Hill Mayor Edward Wilson said during the event, referring to the man murdered by a Minneapolis police officer on May 25, 2020, sparking a national Black Lives Matters movement. “His death while in the custody of the Signal Hill Police Department is a tragedy that Signal Hill is known for even to this day.”
The private remembrance ceremony on Saturday, June 5 at the Signal Hill Park Community Center was jointly hosted by the Ron Settles Memorial Dedication Committee—comprised of members of Settles’s family and supporters—and the nonprofit Springs of Hope Grief-Care Center in nearby Long Beach, which was co-founded by Settles’s aunt Juanita Matthews.
“We came in a spirit of love and restoration,” Matthews told the Signal Tribune after the event. “That’s what we wanted to bring to the city.”
Several speakers anchored the remembrance, including invited officials such as Wilson, City of Carson Councilmember Cedric Hicks and, significantly, given the circumstances of Settles’s death, Signal Hill Police Chief Christopher Nunley.
“I’m honored to be invited,” Nunley told the Signal Tribune prior to the event, also saying it meant a lot to the Signal Hill Police Department. “This is a day of remembrance, but it’s also a day of recognition of the good work that’s been done in the city since this tragedy.”
More than one speaker—including Wilson, who is Black—recounted avoiding Signal Hill in the years surrounding Settles’s jail-cell death on June 2, 1981 following a routine traffic stop. The city lay under a cloud of suspicion and fear for local African Americans.
“Growing up in Long Beach, people of color were taught to not drive through Signal Hill at night,” Wilson said as an audience member added, “Or any time.”
The city was known for being racist, Wilson said, with Ku Klux Klan activities on its hilltop and its police using dogs on people. But a lot has changed in 40 years, he said.
“Today, I am announcing that June 2nd should be declared Ron Settles Remembrance Day in Signal Hill,” Wilson said, adding that the City Council would have to approve such a measure before it could be enacted.
Other speakers at the remembrance included Settles’s aunts Juanita Strong Matthews of Long Beach and Gloria Strong Robinson of Colorado, who are also pastors; Settles’s cousin Rodney Strong, an Atlanta-based lawyer; Reverend Wayne Chaney, Jr., pastor of the Antioch Church in Long Beach; Reverend Michael Ealey, pastor of the Prevailing in Christ Ministries in Carson; Linda Moore, restorative justice coordinator at Banning High School, from which Settles graduated; and Carolyn Platt, a member of the Ron Settles Memorial Dedication Committee.
With a black-and-gold theme—the colors of Cal State Long Beach, where Settles was a star football player when he died—the upbeat event also featured videotaped comments by friends, former classmates and family who could not attend in person; pastor-led prayers; singing by Janice Valentine, an instructor at Poly High School; and chamber music by the Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles.
Wilson said when he joined the Signal Hill City Council in 1997 as the first Black elected official, he was asked if he was related to Settles.
“It seems like only my family and I realized how inappropriate that question was,” he said.
Since then, he said, City Clerk Carmen Brooks has become the second Black elected official and City Manager Hannah Shin-Heydorn the first female and first Asian American to hold her office.
“Systemic racism was finally recognized as a reality in the United States from the televised murder of George Floyd at the hands of police officers,” Wilson said. “Last year, three people wrote letters to the Signal Hill City Council asking them to address their own systemic racism.”
“Ron Settles’s family—despite experiencing a devastating loss—committed themselves to turning their pain into purpose and promoting healing and restoration.”
–Edward Wilson, Mayor of Signal Hill
Out of subsequent council discussion stemmed Signal Hill’s Race and Equity Framework, including a resolution standing up for equality and against systemic racism and establishment of the City’s Diversity Coalition Committee, Wilson said. Part of the committee’s mandate is to examine municipal policies—including those of the police—for bias.
Wilson further noted the symbolism of the adjacent Signal Hill Public Library built on the site of the former police station where Settles had died.
“A library represents opportunity,” he said. “It represents growth, it represents our future, it represents knowledge, it represents history. It represents the physical changes within the city.”
He also presented a proclamation to Matthews on behalf of the Signal Hill City Council that recognizes Settles as once a star athlete and student at Cal State Long Beach and acknowledges he died at the hands of Signal Hill police.
The proclamation also recognizes the inauguration of the Ron Settles Memorial Foundation Scholarship to support Black students seeking degrees in education and criminal justice.
“Ron Settles’s family—despite experiencing a devastating loss—committed themselves to turning their pain into purpose,” Wilson said. “And promoting healing and restoration.”
Family resilience continues through scholarship and grief counseling
The Ron Settles Memorial Foundation was established by Settles’s first cousins. Board members Madeline Strong Woodley and her daughter Donna Woodley said the foundation scholarship’s purpose is to help end social injustice and systemic racism.
“Creating change is the foundation’s focus,” Madeline Woodley said, echoing a theme of constructive action by several family members.
Rodney Strong described his aunt Gloria Strong Robinson’s Civil Rights activism in Memphis, Tennessee—where the family is from and where Settles was laid to rest—and her NAACP involvement since then.
“It is incumbent upon those of us that wear this uniform to continue to build on his legacy and to work hard to ensure, with every single contact we have with our community, we do this with empathy, dignity and respect for everyone.”
–Signal Hill Police Chief Christopher Nunley
According to Brian Dunn of The Cochran Firm in Los Angeles in a videotaped comment, the Signal Hill police did not anticipate the strength of Settles’s family, who’d hired lawyer Johnny Cochran to uncover the truth in 1981.
“What [Settles’s] family received is typical of what any family receives when their loved one is killed by law enforcement—they received a convoluted web of lies,” Dunn said, referring to the police maintaining that Settles had committed suicide in his jail cell by hanging himself.
However, a coroner’s inquest revealed that Settles died not by suicide but police homicide, he said. No police officers were charged in his death.
“He almost certainly would have been a pro-football player,” Dunn said of Settles. “All of that was taken away from him.”
Several surviving members of the 1981 Ron Settles Justice Committee, which had fought for accountability in Settles’s death, were in attendance, including Matthews.
“We’ve come full circle,” Matthews said. “We look back at those tragic days that we gathered around [Ron’s parents] Helen and Darnell Settles. The journey to justice was difficult. They pulled some trumped-up charges.”
But Matthews said it was important for her own son to know that love makes a difference in the face of wrongdoing.
“We come with healing, we come with forgiveness, we come for restoration,” Matthews said of the event. “Love never fails.”
Matthews also described the work she currently does with her nonprofit Springs of Hope Grief-Care Center to help parents of murdered children deal with tragedy, noting that she didn’t have the tools she does now to help her sister Helen after she’d lost her only son Ron.
“When we say we find purpose in our pain, it’s not just a cliché for us—it’s deep,” Matthews said of her family’s efforts. “It takes grit to do it. It’s hard work.”
“Never to repeat:” Police reforms since Settles’s death
Signal Hill Police Chief Christopher Nunley said in his event speech that he and most of his staff are too young to have known Ron Settles. But they wear the same uniform as those who killed him.
“Members of our community continuously remind us,” Nunley said. “The media remind us. Our policies and practices remind us. In fact, the very culture of the Signal Hill Police Department reminds us every day we can and we must do better, we must be better.”
Settles’s death set the department on a course of professionalism, training and community partnership, and transparency not seen in other police departments, Nunley said.
“It is incumbent upon those of us that wear this uniform to continue to build on his legacy and to work hard to ensure, with every single contact we have with our community, we do this with empathy, dignity and respect for everyone,” Nunley said. “As modern-day Signal Hill police officers, we recognize the past, yet we vow never to repeat it.”
Reverend Wayne Chaney, Jr. said Settles’s death after being beaten and hung by Signal Hill police in 1981 was “grotesque and unjust… unspeakable.” Yet, it planted a seed.
“Because he died, you can no longer take someone in the jail cell without reasonable visibility and accountability,” Chaney said. “Because he died, there are cameras in holding facilities. Because he died, there must be detailed accounts of every use of force while detained. We still have progress to make, but because he died, hundreds of men and women that look like him will live to return to their families no matter how long they were detained.”
Reverend Michael Ealey also marked the impact of Settles’s death on Signal Hill.
“The debt owed to this family after 40 years is settled by a simple apology and an acknowledgement that his life mattered because all lives matter,” Ealey said. “It is a testament to this city to start and continue the process of healing. This is a city on the hill—a signal to all that change has come.”
The Ron Settles Memorial Dedication Committee is hosting a public 40th Anniversary Ron Settles Day of Remembrance event through YouTube Live at 1 p.m. on Saturday, June 12—Settles’s birthday.
