Former school safety officer charged in fatal shooting of teenager

A former California school safety officer who fatally shot an unarmed 18-year-old girl last month has been charged with murder, prosecutors said.

The former officer, Eddie F. Gonzalez, 51, was arrested Wednesday and charged with one count of murder in the Sept. 27 shooting of Manuela Rodriguez, 18, near Millikan High School in Long Beach, the Los Angeles County district attorney, George Gascón, said in a statement Wednesday.

Gonzalez, who was a school safety officer with the Long Beach Unified School District, was booked into the Long Beach jail on Wednesday, where he was being held on $2 million bail, according to jail records. It was not immediately clear if he had a lawyer.

“We must hold accountable the people we have placed in positions of trust to protect us,” Gascón said in the statement. “That is especially true for the armed personnel we traditionally have relied upon to guard our children on their way to and from and at school.”

Just after 3 p.m. on Sept. 27, Gonzalez was patrolling an area near the high school when he noticed Rodriguez and a 15-year-old girl fighting in the street, police said. The 15-year-old, who was not identified, was a student at Millikan High School.

A lawyer for the Rodriguez family, Michael Carrillo, said Rodriguez, who was known as Mona, was not a student at the school and had a 6-month-old son.

Investigators said a 20-year-old man and a 16-year-old boy were also involved in the incident. When the man, the boy and Rodriguez tried to drive away, Gonzalez approached the vehicle to prevent them from fleeing, police said.

Carillo said the man, Rafeul Chowdhury, was Rodriguez’s boyfriend and the father of her son, and the boy was Chowdhury’s brother.

Video showed the car almost hitting Gonzalez, who fired at least two shots as it drove off, striking Rodriguez, who was a passenger, according to the police. Carrillo said she was shot in the head.