Fremont police sued over teen’s death

Antioch girl, 16, was killed when officers shot at moving car

The family of a 16-yearold pregnant girl shot and killed by undercover Fremont police officers last year filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the department Wednesday.

Elena Mondragon, of Antioch, was killed on March 14, 2017, when two Fremont detectives shot at a moving car in Hayward. She was in the first trimester of pregnancy. Police were reportedly tracking her boyfriend, who was driving the car.

“Shockingly, officers engaged in a series of egregious tactical errors and contravened their training and basic common sense, which resulted in an outrageous loss of innocent life,” said attorney John Burris, who’s representing the family.

The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, cited the officers’ “reckless disregard for department policy, safe tactics and human life by opening fire on a moving car full of teenagers,” Burris said.

The suit was announced at a news conference Wednesday afternoon.

Last March, Elena, her cousin and two friends — including 19-year-old Rico

Tiger, Elena’s boyfriend — were swimming at City View Apartment Homes in Hayward while a group of undercover officers from the Southern Alameda Major Crimes Task Force kept watch from afar, Burris said. The officers were reportedly following Tiger, an armed robbery suspect.

When Elena and the others left the pool, police said, she got into the passenger seat of an allegedly stolen car. As the group attempted to drive away, a Dodge minivan and Honda Pilot pulled out to block the car’s path.

Tiger, who was driving, rammed the unmarked patrol vehicles, resulting in Fremont Police Sgt. Jeremy Miskella and Fremont Police Detective Joel Hernandez firing their weapons, police said.

Five officers in total were on the scene, but none of them had activated their body-worn cameras, Burris said.

Four bullets hit Elena, who later died in the hospital, Burris said.

The Alameda County district attorney’s office concluded the two officers were justified in using lethal force.

In a 30-page report, Deputy District Attorney Robert Graff said Elena’s death was “unintended and tragic,” but that the two officers “acted in lawful” self-defense when they opened fire.

Geneva Bosques, a Fremont police spokeswoman, said the department would not comment on pending litigation.

The family’s lawsuit contends that the plainclothes officers never identified themselves as police after jumping out of their vehicles with assault rifles. The complaint also argues that police had multiple opportunities to initiate an arrest of Tiger before he, Elena and others got into the vehicle.

Christina Flores, Elena’s aunt, told The Chronicle last March that the family was “broken” after the girl’s death.

“She enjoyed being a kid,” Flores said through tears outside of her Pittsburg home, adding that Elena was “always smiling.”

“She was our baby. This family will never be complete.”

Tiger fled the scene, police said, before being arrested the next day.

Tiger and Elena were dating, Flores said.

“I feel like he was manipulating her. She wasn’t involved in what (police) were looking for him for,” Flores said of Tiger. “Maybe she hung around them, but she didn’t do none of those things.”

Tiger remains in custody in Santa Clara County on unrelated armed robbery charges. He was also charged with Elena’s murder and the attempted murder of two police officers.