A teenager from Antioch who was a passenger in a vehicle that Fremont police identified as being connected with multiple armed robberies was shot and killed by police Tuesday near the Cal State East Bay campus in Hayward as police were attempting to apprehend two robbery suspects. The deceased teen, who was not herself a suspect, has since been identified as 16-year-old Elena "Ebbie" Mondragon, and as KRON 4 is reporting, a coroner has found that she was two months pregnant.
The Chronicle spoke with Mondragon's aunt, Christina Flores, who through tears described her niece as "our baby" and said the family would be "broken" without her.
She further explained that Mondragon's mother was expecting her daughter back quickly when she left home Monday because she left in sweatpants with no makeup, and left her cellphone behind. The mother then became worried when her daughter didn't return home Monday night, and she got a distressing phone call from her daughter from an unknown number late that night saying, "Come get me, come get me," and she was crying. The phone then hung up, and when her mother called the number back it was answered by a man they knew only as "Rico" who was apparently the daughter's boyfriend, and a suspect in the armed robberies in Fremont.
Flores further told the Chronicle, "I feel like he was manipulating her. She wasn’t involved in what [police] were looking for him for. Maybe she hung around them, but she didn’t do none of those things."
The shooting occurred at 5:20 p.m. Tuesday after detectives attempted to stop the vehicle, which had been identified as stolen and connected to the robberies, at City View Apartment Homes at 25200 Carlos Bee Boulevard in Hayward. "Rico" was allegedly driving, put the car in reverse, and rammed into an unmarked patrol vehicle, injuring two detectives, as the East Bay Times reported.
Officers tried to shoot at the driver, and struck Mondragon instead, who died from her wounds at a nearby hospital. Two suspects in the car, a male and a female, were arrested at the scene, and a third male suspect who fled the scene on foot was later apprehended as well.
A GoFundMe page has been set up to assist with her funeral expenses, and on it Mondragon's family describes her as a "witty fun loving girl [who] was coldly shot by the Fremont Police Department... Her family is feeling a pain that seems in this moment that will never go away." The text further asks that the requested donations will alleviate the burden on Mondragon's "single mother [who] does not have means or frame of mind to handle these details."