‘No justification’ for shooting by Long Beach school safety officer, experts say

A Long Beach Unified School District safety officer speaks to a woman Wednesday outside Robert A. Millikan High School, near where 18-year-old Mona Rodriguez was shot by a different school safety officer Monday. Seth Stoughton, a former Florida police officer and a University of South Carolina law professor who studies shootings, said most law enforcement training today strongly discourages officers from firing at a moving vehicle, which is “highly unlikely to actually stop the car and risks making the situation worse.” “Officers can use deadly force when they reasonably believe the subject presents an imminent threat of death or great bodily harm,” he said, noting that although the car was turning right while the officer was standing on the passenger’s side, “the threat was minimal and all he had to do to make it nonexistent was slide back slightly.” By the time the officer began firing, he already was near the back of the car, Stoughton added. “The way he shot at us wasn’t right.” The Long Beach school district employs nine full-time and two part-time safety officers, as well as four supervisors, Eftychiou said. The school district is a “separate government entity” from the Long Beach Police Department, the city said in a statement, and the officer involved in Monday’s shooting is not employed by the city. A retired Long Beach Unified school safety officer, who asked to remain anonymous, said officers go through a police academy followed by a short probationary period, but their training is “not anywhere close” to what officers at the Long Beach Police Department and similar agencies receive.