Mod: Sierra Madre is making a little bit of unfortunate national news. This story has not been covered in town.School Cop Who Shot Teen Is Fired as Police Open Homicide Probe (The Daily Beastlink): The day after 18-year-old Mona Rodriguez—who was shot by a Southern California school safety officer last week—was taken off life support, the Long Beach Police Department announced that it is investigating the incident as a homicide.
“Yesterday, Oct. 6, 2021,
Manuela ‘Mona’ Rodriguez, who was struck in the upper body in a shooting incident on Sep. 27, 2021, succumbed to her injuries,” the department said in a statement released Thursday. “In light of this news, detectives are now investigating this matter as a homicide.”
A Long Beach PD spokesman confirmed to The Daily Beast that an investigation is underway, but could not provide a timeline for its completion.
The announcement follows Wednesday’s firing by the Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD) of the officer involved, Eddie F. Gonzalez, for violating district policy on the use of force, Superintendent Jill Baker said at a news conference.
“After our internal review, we clearly saw areas where the employee violated district policy and did not meet our standards and expectations,”
Baker told reporters. “We believe the decision to terminate this officer’s employment is warranted, justified and quite frankly, the right thing to do.”
Jerlene Tatum, a community advocate working with the Rodriguez family, told The Daily Beast that they are “thankful” Gonzalez’s employment has been terminated, but that the family is hopeful he will soon be arrested and charged.
Details about
Gonzalez’s past have emerged slowly, and are far from exhaustive. But the information that’s been revealed offers a small peek at the man who touched off a firestorm some 10 days ago.
State records reviewed by the Long Beach Post show Gonzalez worked as a sworn police officer in the Southern California cities of Los Alamitos and Sierra Madre, but only stayed on the job for a few months at each. Gonzalez was a member of the Los Alamitos force from January 8, 2019 to April 8, 2019, according to the report. In September 2019, Gonzalez joined the Sierra Madre PD, staying on the job until July 2020, his now-deleted LinkedIn profile stated.
In
California, a cop’s personnel records are protected, “so that the public will never know when an officer is fired for misconduct, for example,”
Carrillo told
The Daily Beast. But, he said, the
Rodriguez family plans to file a lawsuit seeking damages for
Mona’s death. And in civil court, a judge can order personnel files to be turned over to a plaintiff’s attorneys, he explained. However, that information cannot be released publicly.
Mod: SMPD must be scraping the bottom. A lot more at the link. You might want to check Google News as well. Pretty extensive ongoing coverage. Except in Sierra Madre.
‘A bunch of red flags’; school safety officer who shot 18-year-old briefly worked as police officer(
Long Beach Postlink): Months later, in September 2019,
Gonzalez took a new job as a police officer with the city of
Sierra Madre in
Los Angeles County, but his employment ended in July of 2020, according to information from his now-deleted
LinkedIn.
A city representative declined to confirm
Gonzalez’s employment with the city, stating that a former employee must first sign a waiver to allow the release of that information. A post on the
Sierra Madre Police Department’s Facebook page on Sept. 19, 2019, shows
Gonzalez being sworn in by a lieutenant.
Records from
Transparent California, which logs state employee salaries, show that
Gonzalez worked for
Los Alamitos as a police officer in 2019 and earned $37,420. He is also listed as a
Sierra Madre police officer in 2019, earning $30,625.
Mod: Why would the City of Sierra Madre want to help shield a killer cop?
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