Photo: Jorge Macías / Impremedia
Former school security officer of the Long Beach Unified School District, Eddie F. González, will be tried for the murder of the Hispanic Manuela Rodríguez, determined this Wednesday a judge.
González, of 52 years old and originally from Orange County, was ordered to stand trial on one count of second-degree murder in the shooting death of “Mona” Rodríguez, of 18 years, on 27 September 2021 near Millikan School in Long Beach.
Eddie Gonzalez, who was fired by LBUSD about a week after shooting Manuela “Mona “Rodríguez in the head on September 27, received an order to stand trial on Wednesday . https://t.co/pb4af3yY5a— TELEMUNDO 52 (@TELEMUNDO80) January 20, 2022
The Judge Daniel Lowenthal considered that there was enough evidence to send the case to trial during the preliminary hearing held in the Superior Court of Long Beach.
The magistrate described the case as “tragic and heartbreaking”, especially for Rodríguez’s family, although it was also so for the Millikan School community and for the Gonzalez family.
Eddie González was accused of firing two shots at a car in which Rodríguez, her boyfriend Rafeul Chowdhury and his brother were driving away to full speed of the guard in the parking lot of a shopping center after intervening in a disp between Rodríguez and a young woman of years old at approximately 3 pm on 27 of September.
Fatal head injury
Rodríguez received one of the shots in the back of the head when she was sitting in the passenger seat. front passenger. The Hispanic woman died a week later when life support was withdrawn.
Long Beach Police Detective Donald Collier testified and testified that González told him that he aimed at the driver when he fired and thought the driver was going to run him over, which did not happen
.
Surveillance video showed González running to the front of the vehicle in which Rodríguez was traveling, drew his gun and fired into two times as the car drove away.
Two witnesses testified Collier and the detective Ethan Shear who thought that González was in danger of being run over and other witnesses stated that they heard the security guard yell “stop” before firing the shots.
Defense attempts to reduce the charge to involuntary manslaughter
The defense attorney, Michael Schwartz, arg He added that prosecutors had not shown implicit malice to justify a second-degree murder charge. He said that this was a manslaughter case at best, so he asked that the charge against him be reduced to manslaughter, as well as the bail set at $100,000 dollars instead of the $2 million imposed on your client.
Prosecutor saeed Teymouri stated that González intentionally committed the shooting without taking human life into account, and argued that he avoided the threat of being run over by stepping back from the car before shooting.
In the end, the judge agreed with Teymouri.
“The video is very clear and powerful. The two shots were fired after the car passed and when there was no threat”, said the judge before issuing his ruling.
González was trying arrest the driver of the car because the young woman with whom Rodríguez had the lawsuit accused her of having stolen a cell phone, so the guard tried to keep the three occupants in custody of the car until authorities arrived.
A week after the shooting, the Long Beach Unified School District fired Gonzalez, ruling that the shooting were not within district policy.
The former security guard was arrested by police at his home a month after the shooting, the same day Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon announced he had filed the charge homicide.
González must remain in prison with a bail of $2 million dollars.
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