According to the woman’s family, an 18-year-old student shot in the head by a school security officer is brain-dead and unlikely to survive.
Mona Rodriguez, the mother of a 5-month old son, was hit by a bullet in the back of the head while driving away from Millikan High School in Long Beach, California. She is currently on life support in the hospital.
On Monday afternoon, Rodriguez got into an altercation with a 15-year-old girl near the school. She was then seen jumping into a vehicle with her brother and her child’s father Rafeul Chowdhury.
Reports say that she was shot as she was fleeing the scene.
According to KTLA, the 20-year-old father and her 16-year-old brother are being investigated for their roles in the incident.
Cellphone video obtained by media outlets captured what showed to be officers firing two bullets at the car as it sped out the parking lot.
Rodriguez’s family protested outside the school on Wednesday, where Chowdhury told reporters that the couple had been trying to conceive for a long time, according to KTLA.
“And now we do, and now she’s gone,” he heartbreakingly said. “I just got to step up now and play the mother and the father role and keep my son strong.”
According to Chowdhury, the officer used pepper spray on the two fighting girls. He said that the girls stopped fighting and that the cop never threatened to use his firearm.
“All we did is just got in the car and left,” Chowdhury told the outlet. “He never told us to stop anytime soon, and the way he shot us, it wasn’t right.”
At this time, the school’s safety officer has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.
Long Beach Public Schools Superintendent Jill Baker told the outlet that the district’s safety officers are “well trained and held responsible to the established standards in their profession” and that he will be investigated accordingly.
“There’s no excuse, no justification for this officer shooting in the rear passenger-side window of a car with an unarmed woman. Everyone in the car was unarmed,” Ali said outside the school. “And the fact is, he shot at someone in the passenger seat with no regard for anyone’s life in the car.”
“The only way we stop these safety officers from shooting unarmed people and killing them is by having them prosecuted and held accountable for what they’ve done wrong to members of the community,” Ali said.
