Ex-Long Beach school safety officer walks free after he's sentenced to time served in fatal shooting

LONG BEACH, Calif. (CNS) -- A now-former Long Beach Unified School District safety officer who fired into a moving vehicle about a block away from a high school, fatally shooting an 18-year-old woman inside the car, was sentenced Tuesday to three years in prison but walked out of court after being given credit for time already spent in county jail and on electronic monitoring.

Eddie Gonzalez, 54, pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter Aug. 20, just over four months after jurors deadlocked in his trial on the more serious count of murder in connection with the Sept. 27, 2021, shooting of Manuela "Mona" Rodriguez about a block from Millikan High School in Long Beach.

The shooting was captured on video.

Rodriguez died days later after being taken off life support. Gonzalez was charged with murder about a month later, although that charge was dismissed Tuesday as a result of his plea.

Gonzalez -- who walked out of the Long Beach courtroom surrounded by family members and friends after his sentencing -- had faced either three years in prison as the defense requested or the six-year term requested by the prosecution under his plea deal.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Richard M. Goul noted that the defendant "did not drive" what happened in the case.

The judge said the school safety officer intervened to stop an attack on a female high school student who was dragged into the street and that he was "doing his job" when he tried to stop the vehicle -- in which Rodriguez was a front-seat passenger -- as its three occupants tried to flee from a parking lot near the intersection of Spring Street and Palo Verde Avenue.

"They did not stop," Goul said, adding that "Manuela would be alive today" otherwise.

The judge cited "significant changes in the law" in which a low-term is the presumed starting point for a sentence, and noted that the aggravating factors -- the most compelling of which is that Rodriguez was "a particularly vulnerable victim" -- do not outweigh the mitigating factors, which included no prior criminal conduct by the defendant.

The judge told the packed courtroom that "nothing can bring back Manuela," calling it a "tragic loss of a life so young" and saying that the pain her family feels must be "unimaginable." He said he has heard the evidence and observed Gonzalez in court and believes that "what he has done will haunt him (the defendant) for the rest of his life."

The young woman's brother, Oscar, said he has been "disgusted," "saddened" and "heartbroken" since his sister's killing, saying that his own "dream of becoming an officer is crushed."

"Losing my sister the way I lost her has been horrific," he told the judge. "I just want justice for my sister. ... I miss my sister every single day."

Rafeul Chowdhury, who was driving the vehicle containing his girlfriend that day, said he was in court to "get justice for my baby's mother." He said Gonzalez had "shot the person who was to be my future wife."

The woman's mother, Manuela Sahagun, said through a Spanish interpreter in an emotional statement that her pain "will never go away."

She said she was "not getting justice" and feared that "it could happen to another family."

Ken Chinn, one of the assistant pastors at Calvary Chapel in Anaheim, was among three people who spoke on behalf of the defendant during the hearing.

He said Gonzalez spoke to him about the grief he felt over someone losing their life that day due to his actions, saying that he "accepts full responsibility for that." He described the defendant as "having a good heart" and wanting to help others.

Longtime friend Randy George described law enforcement as Gonzalez's passion, saying that he "has only wanted to help people."

"This man was broken when he found out what happened," his friend said in an emotion-filled statement. "This man has been through hell. He doesn't deserve this."

Deputy District Attorney Lee Orquiola and defense attorney Michael Schwartz both called the case a "tragedy all-around," but differed on what Gonzalez's sentence should be.

"This is a case where not only did the defendant's actions take the life of Mona Rodriguez," the prosecutor said, adding that Gonzalez's actions also endangered other people who were in the parking lot that day, including a grandmother and her two grandchildren, after school had gotten out for the day.

The prosecutor said the plea deal spared the victim's family from having to face another trial.

Gonzalez's attorney countered that his client has "served the community for years" and served as a reserve deputy for years and "put his life on the line for free."

Schwartz described his client as "remorseful" and said the shooting will "haunt" his client for the rest of his life.

Gonzalez referred questions to his lawyer as he walked away from the courtroom.

His attorney said the defense was grateful that the judge saw his client as an individual and "not just the charges."

The victim's brother told reporters outside court after the sentencing that everybody who heard what happened "knows the right thing should have been done and it wasn't."

"I honestly just don't get it," he said.

Gonzalez was arrested in October 2021 the day he was charged with murder and remained behind bars until July 2022, when he was released on bail while under electronic monitoring.

After about two days of deliberations in April, the jury foreperson in Gonzalez's murder trial told the judge that the panel was split 7-5 -- with the majority favoring convicting Gonzalez of second-degree murder. The other five jurors opted for voluntary manslaughter and an acquittal on the more serious offense of second-degree murder.

The jury's foreperson told reporters after the deadlock that some of the jurors were "focused on the idea of lag time," which was brought up during the defense's case to explain the difference in time between when a law enforcement officer perceives a threat and the time a gunshot is fired. But she said she was "absolutely" convinced that Gonzalez was guilty of murder.

During Gonzalez's trial, Orquiola told jurors that the defendant tried to "play police officer" and made a series of bad decisions that led to the fatal shooting, while the defendant's attorney argued that his client acted in self-defense out of fear he was going to be run over by the car in which the woman was a passenger.

In his closing argument, the prosecutor said Gonzalez "responded to youthful disobedience with deadly force" and "unjustifiably" fired two shots at the vehicle after an altercation between Rodriguez and a teenage female Millikan student about a block from the school's campus.

Orquiola told jurors all that Gonzalez had to do that day was to get the vehicle's license plate number and let "real police officers handle the situation," but said he instead "escalated the situation with a series of bad decisions" and "unnecessarily fired two shots at the back of that fleeing vehicle."

Gonzalez had moved out of the way of the vehicle and was "not in danger at all" of being struck when he fired the first shot, and did not act in lawful self-defense,'' according to the deputy district attorney, who told jurors that Gonzalez was trying to kill the driver of that vehicle.''

Schwartz, meanwhile, had urged jurors to acquit Gonzalez, telling the panel that "true justice'' demanded such a verdict.

Gonzalez's lawyer countered that the case was about what happened within about 1 1/2 seconds after the vehicle's tires are heard screeching in a series of videos. He said the prosecution had to prove that his client formed the intent during that time to kill someone before firing the shots, telling jurors that it "isn't about hindsight" or "slow motion."

Schwartz said his client shot to "stop the threat of deadly force," noting that two witnesses called by the defense testified that they believed Gonzalez was in danger of being struck by the vehicle if he had not moved out of the way. He said it doesn't mean his client is guilty of anything if the "threat changed positions" before Gonzalez fired the shots.

"A tragedy took place, not a crime," Schwartz told jurors.

He said the prosecution had to prove that the shooting was not done in self-defense, and said they "haven't done it."

During the trial, jurors repeatedly saw three videos, including a surveillance video and cell phone videos from two bystanders, in which the vehicle's tires could be heard screeching before the two shots rang out.

Rodriguez -- the mother of an infant son -- was in the vehicle with her boyfriend and his teenage brother, and was struck in the head by one of the bullets, which entered the vehicle through the rear passenger window. Police also found a strike mark next to the rear passenger window's door handle.

Gonzalez was fired by the school district a week after the shooting.

In April 2023, Rodriguez's family announced that they reached a $13 million settlement of their lawsuit against the school district in connection with her shooting death.

The lawsuit alleged that Gonzalez did not pass probation when he tried to be hired by the Los Alamitos and Sierra Madre police departments, but he was still hired by the LBUSD, which compounded matters by negligently training him.

The family's attorneys also argued that Gonzalez violated district policy by shooting into a moving vehicle at a fleeing person.

"I personally don't really care about the settlement. It's not bringing back my sister," Rodriguez's brother, Omar, said last year. "I don't want anybody else to go through this pain."

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