California school safety officer pleads no contest to voluntary manslaughter in fatal shooting of 18-year-old

A former California school safety officer has pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter nearly three years after he was charged with murder for fatally shooting an 18-year-old woman as she tried to flee a physical altercation, officials said Tuesday.

A former California school safety officer has pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter nearly three years after he was charged with murder for fatally shooting an 18-year-old woman as she tried to flee a physical altercation, officials said Tuesday. Eddie Gonzalez is scheduled to be sentenced on October 8 and faces either three or six years in prison, Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office spokesperson Pamela J. Johnson told CNN. The plea comes about four months after a mistrial was declared in the murder trial against Gonzalez, after the jury failed to reach a verdict. Gonzalez was patrolling an area near Millikan High School in Long Beach on September 27, 2021, when he noticed a fight between Manuela Rodriguez, 18, and a 15-year-old girl, the police said. As Rodriguez and two others attempted to flee the scene in a nearby vehicle, the school safety officer allegedly fired his handgun at the sedan, striking Rodriguez, who was in the front passenger seat, police said. Rodriguez was taken to a hospital and died from her injuries approximately a week later, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office said. She left behind a 5-month-old son. Gonzalez was soon fired for violating the district’s use-of-force policy, which instructs its safety officers not to shoot at a fleeing person, moving vehicle or through a vehicle window unless “circumstances clearly warrant the use of a firearm as a final means of defense,” the policy states. He was charged with murder a month after the shooting.