Long Beach School Cop Shot And Killed A Teen Mom

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A Long Beach, California, school resource offi­cer fatal­ly shot an 18-year-old moth­er in the head as she fled a fight in her car. Now, two days after she died, police are inves­ti­gat­ing the shoot­ing as a homicide.
“Manuela ‘Mona’ Rodriguez, who was struck in the upper body in a shoot­ing inci­dent on Sept. 27, 2021, suc­cumbed to her injuries,” the Long Beach Police Department announced Thursday. “In light of this news, detec­tives are now inves­ti­gat­ing this mat­ter as a homicide.”
The news comes just a day after the Long Beach Unified School District vot­ed to fire safe­ty offi­cer Eddie Gonzalez for vio­lat­ing the district’s use-of-force pol­i­cy when he fired his weapon at a mov­ing vehicle.
“We believe the deci­sion to ter­mi­nate this officer’s employ­ment is war­rant­ed, jus­ti­fied, and, quite frankly, the right thing to do,” dis­trict Superintendent Jill Baker said after Wednesday’s vote.
Gonzalez was already on leave short­ly after the inci­dent took place last Monday.
Police say, Gonzalez, who’d been dri­ving by in a patrol vehi­cle just moments before the shoot­ing, noticed a fight hap­pen­ing a block away from Millikan High School, where he worked. Rodriguez had been fight­ing an uniden­ti­fied 15-year-old girl for rea­sons that are still not known.

Gonzalez stopped his car and decid­ed to inter­vene in the brawl. The offi­cer threat­ened to pep­per spray the two girls, accord­ing to an eye­wit­ness, after which they dis­persed. As the offi­cer approached again, Rodriguez alleged­ly ran and got into the pas­sen­ger side of a near­by gray sedan where Rafeul Chowdhury, the 20-year-old father of her 5‑month-old son sat, along with his 16-year-old brother.
As the trio drove away, offi­cer Gonzalez pulled out his ser­vice weapon and fired his gun at the car. Though police haven’t spec­i­fied how many shots were fired, social media video appears to show the offi­cer fir­ing two shots.

A bul­let struck Rodriguez in the back of the head, accord­ing to eye­wit­ness­es who spoke to local news affil­i­ate KTLA5. She was tak­en to Long Beach Memorial Hospital where she arrived in crit­i­cal con­di­tion. By Oct. 4, she was declared brain dead, accord­ing to state­ments by her fam­i­ly. They took the young moth­er off life sup­port the next day.
Gonzalez alleged­ly nev­er gave any addi­tion­al orders after the two girls stopped fight­ing, 16-year-old Shahriear Chowdhury told KTLA5.
“All we did is just got in the car and left,” he told the news sta­tion last Wednesday. “He nev­er told us to stop any­time soon, and the way he shot us, it wasn’t right.”
Rodriguez’s cousin Yessica Loza has now set up a GoFundMe to help raise mon­ey for the five-month-old child she leaves behind.
“She was smart, beau­ti­ful, lov­ing and any­one who knew her knew how big her heart was, how full of life she was and how much she loved her fam­i­ly,” Loza wrote of Rodriguez on the GoFundMe page. “Most espe­cial­ly her son who was her entire life, pride and joy.”

While Gonzalez hasn’t been charged yet, well-estab­lished poli­cies with­in the school dis­trict bar resource offi­cers from fir­ing at mov­ing vehi­cles. Additional prece­dent also exists at the fed­er­al lev­el, known as the “flee­ing felon rule.” A police offi­cer can only use dead­ly force to pre­vent the escape of a flee­ing sus­pect if the offi­cer has a good-faith belief that the per­son flee­ing pos­es a sig­nif­i­cant threat or seri­ous phys­i­cal injury to the offi­cer or oth­ers, accord­ing to the 1985 Supreme Court case Tennessee v. Garner. This sto­ry orig­i­nat­ed at (Vice newS)