Family To Donate Organs Of 18-Year-Old Mother Mona Rodriguez Who Was Shot By School Officer In Long Beach
LONG BEACH (CBSLA) — The family of an 18-year-old mother who was shot by a school safety officer near Millikan High School in Long Beach say they will donate her organs when she is taken off life support.
Mona Rodriguez, 18, will remain on life support for up to the next three days so recipients can be matched with her organs, her family said at a news conference Friday.
"I just want justice for my sister," her brother, Oscar Rodriguez, said. "She didn't deserve this. Nobody deserves this."
He said that he and his family have been struggling since the shooting on Monday outside Millikan High School in Long Beach. An unidentified school resource officer had intervened in a fight between Rodriguez and a 15-year-old girl. Rodriguez jumped into a car that was captured on video speeding away, as the officer fired into the vehicle.
Rodriguez was not a student at the school. Rafeul Chowdhury, her boyfriend and the father of her 5-month-old baby, said she had been declared brain dead on Wednesday.
The officer has since been placed on leave. Long Beach Unified School District's school safety officers undergo training with the Long Beach Police Department at its academy, but their use-of-force policy does not allow officers to fire at a moving vehicle. The district says Monday's incident was the first time one of its school safety officers was involved in a shooting.
