Woman, 18, Shot by School Officer Removed From Life Support

[Celerity]

An 18-year-old woman shot by a Long Beach school safety officer who fired at a moving car has died after being removed from life support.

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/california/articles/2021-10-06/woman-18-shot-by-school-officer-removed-from-life-support

LONG BEACH, Calif. (AP) — An 18-year-old woman shot by a Long Beach school safety officer who fired at a moving car has died after being removed from life support, her family announced Wednesday. Manuela “Mona" Rodriguez died Tuesday and her heart, liver, lungs and two kidneys were donated to five people for transplants, a family statement said.

Rodriguez, the mother of a 5-month-old son, was shot in the back of the head on Sept. 27 in a parking lot near Millikan High School in Long Beach. She was sitting in the passenger seat of a car that was driving away after Rodriguez had gotten into a fight with a 15-year-old girl, police have said. Rodriguez was believed to have started the dispute and her partner, Rafeul Chowdhury, 20, and his 16-year-old brother may have been involved, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Video posted online appeared to show the Long Beach Unified School District safety officer firing at least two shots as the car moved off next to him. At least one bullet pierced a window. School safety officers aren't permitted to fire at a moving vehicle or at fleeing suspects, according to a use-of-force policy from Long Beach Unified School District’s school safety office. Firearms may be discharged only when reasonably necessary and justified under the circumstances, such as self-defense and the protection of others, the policy states.

The officer has been placed on administrative leave while the shooting is investigated by police and the Los Angeles County district attorney's office. Rodriguez's family said she wasn't armed and posed no danger to the safety officer. The family wants the officer to be prosecuted for murder. “This school safety officer decided he was going to be the judge, jury and the executioner,” a brother, Omar Rodriguez, said at a news conference Tuesday.

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[WhiskeyGrinder]

1. I'm sure that cop just needs a little bit more training!!!!!!!!!!

FTP.

[Celerity]

2. video added

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. Heartbreaking and infuriating.

[rsdsharp]

5. It's a teaching moment.

[brush]

4. Put this stupid cop under the jail. WTF? There was no danger...

to anyone but from him. All he had to do was get the car's plate number and follow up later for any questioning of whatever.

Shooting at a car with live ammo with other people and cars around was beyond stupidity. Some people should never be entrusted with a badge and gun...and that includes that murderer.

[uponit7771]

8. THIS !!!! ☝🏾☝🏾☝🏾 They weren't shooting at anyone while speeding away

[brush]

9. And the way I read it, they weren't speeding away. just driving...

away at normal speed, not breaking any law.

[Jedi Guy]

6. This cop is toast, and rightly so. It's just a matter of when the hammer will drop.

He violated policy for his department, and under Tennessee v. Garner he had no reason to open fire. He had absolutely zero probable cause to believe she posed a significant threat of death or serious injury to anyone. If she'd used a deadly weapon during the altercation with the 15-year-old that would be different. Starting an altercation with someone (especially a minor) is dumb, but not deserving of a bullet in the back of the head.

I generally try to give cops the benefit of the doubt, but this was senseless, needless, and stupid. Take his gun and badge, then his liberty.

[Withywindle]

10. In a just world, that would be true

Unfortunately, we don't live in a just world. These rules only exist on paper, and are very rarely used to punish a killer who has a uniform and a badge.

Cops have impunity to kill, and they almost never face any REAL penalty for doing so. I stopped giving cops the benefit of the doubt MANY years ago, because they shoot when they have no need to, because they know they can get away with it. They shoot people running away all the time. They shoot people who were never any thread whatsoever when they were in the WRONG FUCKING APARTMENT. They've been killing innocent Black people with impunity for so very long.

Here's a song Bruce Springsteen wrote in 1999 about the brutal murder of Amadou Diallou, who was fired on 41 times because he had a cell phone in his hand.

I could post video of Tamir Rice, who was a 12-year-old child shot by cops because he was playing with a toy gun in a park, or of Eric Garner who was strangled by cops because he was...selling loose cigarettes, or of Sandra Bland who died mysteriously in jail after being taken in on a traffic violation (when anyone googling her would know she was an activist)

They show up in military riot gear for BLM protests, but don't even intervene at all when white supremacist groups roam city streats beating up people.

STOP GIVING COPS THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT.

The whole country has seen what cops really are over the last decade and a half. The cops who still remain in the force, even if they're not overtly racist and violent, are complicit. The full saying is, "a few rotten apples spoil the barrel." And that's accurate. The alleged minority of racist killer cops don't get prosecuted or testified against NEARLY as much as they should, because of that "thin blue line" gangster omerta bullshit.

The rotten apples in the barrel spoil the whole rest of the force, who won't call them to account or testify against them.

[Withywindle]

11. I'm a middle-aged white looking woman (half Latina but pale) and I am TERRIFIED of police

I would just never call them. Not ever. They never improve any situation, ever, in my experience.

If a crime has been committed, they always come too late and don't solve shit.

If there's a tense situation, they only just escalate, and the chance of someone getting killed is WAY higher with cops there than it would be without them.

If you want to prevent crime, they're useless.

[Jedi Guy]

12. "STOP GIVING COPS THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT."

I'll give the benefit of the doubt where and when I please, thanks very much.

If you want someone to join you in screaming "bLuE mAn BaD" every time a cop shoots someone, I can't help you there. The reality is that sometimes officer-involved shootings are justified, such as in the case of Michael Brown. Sometimes they aren't, such as in the case of Walter Scott. Context matters. The details matter. The facts matter. No two shootings are exactly alike.

Are there things about police culture that need to change? That's absolutely true. The "warrior" mentality training needs to go away because it teaches cops to treat citizens as threats. I'll also agree with you that the blue wall of silence needs to go away, for obvious reasons.

By the by, you'd never, ever call the cops? So if someone were forcing his way into your home and you had no avenue of escape, you wouldn't call the cops? I am, to say the least, skeptical. And they don't solve shit? Weird, I wonder how all these criminals keep getting caught.

Are there shithead cops? You bet, because cops are people, and people can be shitheads. But most cops are decent people doing a difficult, dirty job the vast majority of people couldn't imagine doing. So I'll keep on giving them the benefit of the doubt when I like and you'll keep vilifying them all, because neither of us is going to change the other's mind.

[LiberatedUSA]

13. You are a brave soul.

For the Michael Brown one on here.

[Jedi Guy]

14. The investigations were exhaustive.

Forensic evidence (including Brown's DNA on Wilson's service weapon) corroborated Wilson's testimony, as did testimony provided by multiple credible eyewitnesses. Some of those eyewitnesses expressed concerns about retaliation from the community for telling the truth.

Testimony from "eyewitnesses" who asserted that Wilson executed Brown in cold blood, including Brown's friend Dorian Johnson, was found not to be credible. Some of them were not even present at the time, while others had buildings between them and the scene and could not have witnessed the shooting. One explained their lies by saying they "wanted to be part of something," as I recall.

So the end result is either A) the shooting was justified based on the facts at hand, or B) there was a massive cover-up to protect Darren Wilson that went all the way up to then-Attorney General Eric Holder. The latter seems unlikely to me, to say the least.

This is what I'm talking about when I say that the facts matter.

[LiberatedUSA]

15. All true.

Still brave on here. The narrative was set long ago.

[Jedi Guy]

16. You are correct.

Despite priding itself on being a "reality-based community," DU has its own articles of faith. People are very good at closing their eyes to facts that contradict what they want to believe. DU is ultimately just people, and thus not immune to that human frailty.

[IcyPeas]

7. "her heart, liver, lungs and two kidneys were donated to five people"...