Video appears to show officer firing at fleeing car in incident fueling calls for removal of armed officers from schools. An year-old woman is on life support after a school safety officer shot her near a high school in Long Beach, California , this week, sparking outrage and renewing calls for armed officers to be removed from schools. The victim, identified by her family as Manuela Rodriguez, was shot while in a moving vehicle on Monday afternoon.
The Long Beach police department LBPD said an officer for the school district was driving when he observed an altercation between Rodriguez and a year-old girl taking place down the street from Millikan high school and attempted to intervene. Rodriguez then entered a vehicle, which began to drive away. In cellphone video footage circulating on social media, it appeared that the officer fired at the car as it was fleeing.
Rodriguez, who police say was hit in the upper body, was taken to the hospital in critical condition. As of Thursday morning, doctors had declared her braindead and were moving to take her off of life support, according to an attorney for the family. The officer, who has not been identified, is employed by the school district and on paid administrative leave.
Rodriguez, also known as Mona, is not a student at the high school. He said there were no reports that anyone was armed, and that no one was posing a threat to the officer. Police departments across the US have increasingly adopted policies against shooting at moving vehicles, recognizing that firing into a car can greatly endanger the public.
Federal guidance instructs officers only to fire at a driver if the driver presents a deadly threat that is separate from the vehicle such as pointing a gun. Best practices dictate that officers should get out of the way of moving vehicles instead of shooting, experts have said. Some have questioned why the officer was involved in a dispute off campus in a parking lot.
