Family members of a California teenager, who was shot by a school safety officer Monday, said that the incident left her brain dead and she might not survive.
Mona Rodriguez was in a car driving away from Milliken High School in Long Beach, California when she got shot in the back of her head by the school safety officer, who has been placed on administrative leave, reported People.
According to her family’s lawyers, the hospital told her family that she would be taken off life support soon. Her brother, Oscar Rodriguez, said that her family members should be the ones to decide it, reported KTLA.
Rafeul Chowdhury, the father of Mona's 5-month-old child, and his brother, who were in the car when the incident happened, stood alongside civil rights activist Najee Ali to demand justice. Ali said that Mona is only on life support till her family members can say their goodbyes.
Chowdhury said that he and Mona had been trying to have a child for a while, and now that they do, she’s gone. He shared that he needs to step up now and play the role of a mother as well as father, and keep their son strong.
According to cops, Mona was involved in an altercation with a 15-year-old girl in the Spring Street and Palo Verde Avenue area Monday afternoon. She was shot when she left in a car with a 16-year-old boy and a 20-year-old man, and now authorities are investigating their possible involvement in the fight. A video captured on phone shows the officer shooting at the car as it sped off from a parking area.
The officer had warned the girl and Mona he would use pepper spray if they didn’t stop fighting, said Chowdhury, and they stopped fighting, but without any warning, the officer opened fire. Chowdhury said that they only got in the car and left, and the officer didn't tell them to stop, and the way he opened fire, it was not the right thing to do.
Mona's family and loved ones want the officer, who has not been publicly identified, to be arrested and prosecuted. Ali said, “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."
The district’s school safety officers are “highly trained and held accountable to the established standards in their profession,” and the officer in question will be judged against those standards as the shooting is investigated, said Long Beach Unified Superintendent Jill Baker.
