Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

School Safety Officer Terminated Following Student Death

  • By Matt Jones
  • 10/14/21

A Long Beach, Calif., school safety officer has been fired after discharging his firearm in an incident that left an 18-year-old mother brain-dead. According to bystander video and news sources, on Monday, Sept. 27, former officer Eddie F. Gonzalez fired two shots at a car leaving a parking lot following a verbal altercation between teenagers. One of the bullets struck Mona Rodriguez, 18, in the head. Rodriguez’s family pulled her off life support on Tuesday, Oct. 5.

On Wednesday, Oct. 6, the Long Beach Unified School District’s school board voted unanimously to terminate Gonzalez. News sources report that Gonzalez had been hired in January after short tenures at several different police departments. The official cause of termination was violation the district’s use-of-force policy. A district spokesperson also confirmed that Rodriguez was not an LBUSD student at the time of the incident, but she had been previously.

The Long Beach Police Department has also opened a homicide investigation, as Gonzalez was an employee of the school district instead of the city. Police will send the results of their investigation to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office, which will decide what charges (if any) to bring against Gonzalez.

A crowd of dozens gathered outside the school board meeting on Wednesday evening, many attendees supporting removing officers from schools and calling for more training in de-escalating situations. “I hope my sister gets the justice that she deserves,” said Oscar Rodriguez, 23, the victim’s older brother. “This can happen to any other family next.”

According to The Washington Post, the district’s use of force policy permits officers to fire their weapons only in self-defense or to prevent death or “great bodily injury” of another. It also explicitly forbids officers to fire at someone who is feeling, toward a moving vehicle or through a vehicle window, unless the circumstances “clearly warrant the use of a firearm as a final means of defense.”

“We clearly saw areas where this employee violated District policy and did not meet our expectations,” said Jill Baker, Long Beach Unified School District Superintendent. “We believe the decision to terminate this officer’s employment is warranted, justified and—quite frankly—the right thing to do.”

About the Author

Matt Jones is senior editor of Spaces4Learning and Campus Security and Life Safety. He can be reached at [email protected]

Featured

  • Rethinking K-12 Schools as a Continuous Learning Experience

    Most students move through three or more separate facilities during their K-12 journey, yet the built environments they encounter at each stage have traditionally been designed in isolation, with little continuity in spatial language, learning philosophy, or physical resources. Each new school is a reset with different layouts, learning models, expectations, and ways of moving through a building. The next generation of school design is making the case that the first day of kindergarten and the last day of high school can and should feel connected through common support systems and infrastructure in the physical environment.

  • Planning with Clarity: Using AI to Make Better Campus Decisions, Not Just Better Designs

    Higher education leaders are being asked to make increasingly high-stakes decisions about campus facilities amid greater uncertainty than ever before. Social and economic pressures, shifting enrollment, and evolving learning models compete with growing deferred maintenance needs to strain even the most robust infrastructure budgets.

  • Virginia Tech Tops Out New College of Engineering Building

    Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., recently celebrated the topping out of Mitchell Hall, which will soon stand as the largest College of Engineering building on campus, according to a news release. The university partnered with Skanska on the 285,500-square-foot facility, which has an expected completion date of winter 2028.

  • Children walking along bright school corridor with motion blur

    How Next-Gen Design Is Reshaping the Student Experience

    The environments where students learn play a crucial role in shaping their growth in and out of the classroom. By centering design on well-being, flexibility, and purpose, districts can ensure their facilities remain vibrant community assets for many years to come.