A mistrial was declared on Tuesday, April 16, in the case of a 54-year-old Orange man accused of murder in the slaying of an 18-year-old woman sitting in the passenger seat of a car, driving away, as the Long Beach Unified School District safety officer fired two shots near Millikan High School in June 2021.
Jurors deadlocked, with a 7-5 vote, with the majority favoring guilt on second-degree murder.
Jurors reached their verdict in their third day of deliberations after being handed the case after a week long trial in which attorneys argued about the nature of the shooting and whether Eddie Francisco Gonzalez was in danger of being hit by the car, driven by the boyfriend of Manuela “Mona” Rodriguez who died of a gunshot wound to the back of the head after one of two shots fired by Gonzalez traversed the rear passenger window and the passenger seat headrest.
Gonzalez has been out of custody since posting bail in July 2022, six months after a judge ruled there was enough evidence to have him stand trial on a murder charge.
Gonzalez was fired from LBUSD a week after the shooting, when the school board ruled he was out of policy when he fired two shots. The shooting was caught on two cellphone videos and a surveillance camera at an L-shaped strip mall.
Rodriguez and Sabrina Ramos, a then-15-year-old Millikan student, had fought and ended up in the southbound lanes of Palo Verde Avenue when Gonzalez pulled up in a marked SUV and separated them. Gonzalez sat Ramos down on the curb and went after Rodriguez, her boyfriend Rafeul Chowdhury and his younger brother as they got inside Chowdhury’s sedan.
Gonzalez went up to the front-passenger side of the car and slammed on the hood twice, then pointed a handgun at the windshield in an attempt to get the attention of the driver.
Videos caught the sound of screeching tires as the car started moving. Gonzalez lowered his weapon and stepped away from the car, prosecutors said, then lifted it again and fired from behind the sedan.
Defense attorney Michael Schwartz said Gonzalez’s life was in danger when the car peeled out and several witnesses testified that they thought he would be seriously hurt or killed by the car.
Schwartz also told jurors that Chowdhury lied to detectives, telling them the three were in the area from their San Pedro home to pick up a pair of Adidas shoes they had bought for their 5-month-old child through OfferUp. While driving, Chowdhury told detectives, they noticed Ramos, who had feuded with Rodriguez through social media after fighting with a relative days prior.
Instead, Schwartz said, they were specifically seeking Ramos at the high school and followed her after she left wrestling practice.
Schwartz argued Gonzalez had reason to detain the three in the car because Ramos told him they had taken her cellphone and that Rodriguez had threatened to kill her family.
But prosecutors countered that Gonzalez “responded to youthful disobedience with deadly force” — and he would stop at nothing to stop the car.
A week later, Rodriguez was taken off of life support.
Gonzalez was arrested about a month later by Long Beach police on suspicion of murder.
Before being hired at Long Beach Unified in January 2021, Gonzalez had brief stints with the Los Alamitos and Sierra Madre police departments. In a civil lawsuit, Rodriguez family members claimed Gonzalez hadn’t passed the probationary period with either department and that the school district complicated matters by failing to train him properly.
Last year, an attorney representing the family announced a $13 million settlement in the case.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Source: Orange County Register
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