Ex-school safety officer charged with murder in fatal shooting of 18-year-old mom

A California school resource officer who was fired after he fatally shot a young mother last month has been charged with her murder.

Eddie Gonzalez was on patrol near Millikan High School on Sept. 27 when he “noticed an altercation between 18-year-old Manuela Rodriguez and a teenage girl,” according to a press release from the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.

Gonzalez, a Long Beach Unified School safety officer at the time, managed to break up the scuffle, but as he approached the group, Rodriguez slipped into the backseat of a nearby Sedan, which started to move toward the exit of the parking lot. Gonzalez then fired his handgun into the vehicle, striking Rodriguez in the back of the head.

A 20-year-old male and a 16-year-old male were also in the car at the time, police said.

Rodriguez, mother to a 5-month-old son, was not a student at the school. She was declared brain dead in wake of the incident and taken off life support on Oct. 5.

Her family’s attorney, Luis Carillo told CBS Los Angeles Rodriguez donated organs to five patients. She “gave a heart, a liver, lungs, and two kidneys to save the lives of five people,” he said.

Gonzalez was arrested in Orange on Wednesday and is currently in custody at the Long Beach City Jail. Gascón announced the murder charge against him in a press release later the same day.

“We must hold accountable the people we have placed in positions of trust to protect us,” District Attorney Gascón said. “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.”

The school resource officer, only on the job for a few months, is set to be arraigned on Friday.