According to family members, the mother who was shot by a school safety officer near a school is brain dead and not expected to survive. The mom of a 5-month-old baby, was involved in a fight with a 15-year-old girl on Monday afternoon. Police say the 18-year-old was then shot in the back of the head as she left in a car with a 20-year-old man and a 16-year-old boy, whose possible involvement in the fight authorities are investigating. She was transported in a critical condition to a local trauma center where she was put on life support.
But now her family have been told that the victim from California, Mona Rodriguez, will be taken off life support in less than 24 hours. The school safety officer has been placed on paid administrative leave pending the results of an investigation. The father of her 5-month-old son, Rafeul Chowdhury, said the officer had warned his girlfriend that he would pepper spray them if they didn’t stop fighting but they did stop, and the officer gave them no further warnings before opening fire.
“All we did is just got in the car and left,” he said. “He never told us to stop anytime soon, and the way he shot us, it wasn’t right.
“I want (the safety officer) in jail for what he did to my girlfriend — she did not deserve this,” said Chowdhury who added the teen boy in the car was his brother. “I cannot sleep through the nights; I’m going crazy.”
Authorities say the safety officer is not sworn police and is not an employee of the local police department. The safety officer was cooperating with the investigation, authorities said.
The district’s school safety officers are “highly trained and held accountable to the established standards in their profession”, the police spokesperson said.
A GoFundMe, which has raised just over $8,000 for the funeral and other expenses, described Mona as “smart, beautiful, loving and anyone who knew her knew how big her heart was, how full of life she was and how much she loved her family but most especially her son who was her entire life.”