Long Beach school safety officer who shot teenager charged with murder

[Jilly_in_VA]

California authorities have filed murder charges against a former school safety officer who fatally shot an unarmed 18-year-old girl, a rare prosecution for an on-duty killing by an officer.

The Los Angeles district attorney announced Wednesday that Eddie Gonzalez, who had worked as a school officer in Long Beach, was facing one count of murder after he shot into a vehicle near a high school on 27 September, striking 18-year-old Manuela Rodriguez. The teenager, who went by Mona and had a five-month-old boy, was taken to a hospital and put on life support before she died a week later.

Gonzalez had been patrolling the area near Millikan high school, south of LA, when he observed an altercation between Rodriguez and another teenage girl, according to the district attorney’s office. Rodriguez then got into the rear passenger seat of a nearby car, and Gonzalez fired his handgun at the vehicle.

Cellphone video footage that circulated on social media appeared to show the officer firing as the car was fleeing.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/27/california-school-safety-officer-murder-charges

[ratchiweenie]

1. It was a fight. He had no right to shoot at anyone. The fight was over. He deserves to be in prison.

[brush]

2. The car wasn't fleeing. It was just driving away. Fleeing...

implies that the people in the car had consciousness of guilt of a crime. There was no crime until the trigger-happy cop shot into the car.

That was the crime.

[marble falls]

3. There some here on DU who thought the cop was justified.