Police See No Sign Of Error by Trooper
By Mary Beth Sheridan and Ian Shapira
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, December 4, 2006
Just a few months ago, Gloria Elena Rodriguez's family suffered a string of disasters: It lost the lease on its Woodbridge apartment; her sister-in-law died; and her only son, Rodger, was arrested after riding in a stolen car with another teenager.
Yesterday, Rodger was dead, having drowned in the Occoquan River early Saturday after what police say was an attempt to escape an arrest for speeding.
"The blows have just come one after another," said Rodriguez, sobbing, as she sat with her husband in the suburban split-level home they share with two other Honduran families in Woodbridge.
Police said yesterday that they were still investigating the bizarre death of the 16-year-old, who plunged 62 feet into the river after fleeing from a locked cruiser in handcuffs.
Sgt. Terry Licklider, a spokesman for Virginia State Police, said there was "no indication" of improper action by the trooper who left Rodriguez alone in his cruiser when he went to investigate the vehicle the teenager had been driving on Interstate 95.
Rodriguez and her family have a cascade of questions.
How did the teenager escape? Why would he have jumped? Most important, how could this happen to a young man who longed for a bright future in America?
Just 15 months ago, he arrived from Honduras, joyfully reuniting with the mother he hadn't seen since 2002. "Imagine what that was like!" Rodriguez said.
"And now -- dead."
Underpinning her tragedy is a phenomenon familiar to many Central American immigrants. After years of work, they manage to reunite with their children, only to find they have developed an independence that eludes parental control.
Rodriguez moved to Northern Virginia in 2002 after losing her job in the customs office in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. Her second husband, Gilton Acosta, had arrived in the United States a year earlier and was working construction.
"I thought I'd work for a while and go back. Because my children are there," Rodriguez recalled.
She left Rodger, then 11, with her three daughters, the eldest of whom was 21. Although the girls seemed to cope, Rodger seemed to ache for his mother, talking to her nearly every day.
"He couldn't be without me," Rodriguez said.
Last year, she arranged for a smuggler to bring Rodger across the Mexican border, accompanied by her husband's 26-year-old sister, Sarai Acosta, a factory worker. Rodger was arrested and given a summons to appear in immigration court but ignored it and flew to Miami. Rodriguez flew to pick up the boy she hadn't seen in three years -- and found a tall young man, on the brink of 15.
"He said, 'Mama, I'm never going to leave you,' " she said, breaking into a smile.
But once in Virginia, Rodger began to have difficulties, his mother said. He enrolled at Gar-Field High School but cut class constantly to hang around with pals. His mother, busy working in a restaurant, discovered how bad the situation was only when he was expelled.
Then, this past summer, the family was unable to renew the lease on its apartment, Rodriguez's husband said, because "we had no papers." Meanwhile, Sarai Acosta learned she had cancer and had moved in with them.
They managed to rent the bottom floor of the split-level on Kurtz Road, in a slightly frayed middle-class neighborhood of big, green yards. Within days of moving in, Sarai died.
And then Rodger was arrested.
He had been slipping further from his mother's grip, the handsome young man who was always with friends, dancing, flirting. She said she tried to discipline him, throwing away the baggy jeans he bought to fit in with the tough young teenagers at school, taking away his cellphone. But she found it hard to crack down on the loving son she had longed to see for years.
"I felt bad that he didn't have his cellphone," she said.
The arrest, though, was serious. Rodger was with a friend who was driving a stolen car, and they tried to flee police, his stepfather said. Rodger was jailed for several weeks and then released on parole, his family said.
"He didn't think before doing things," his stepfather said.
Rodger promised to improve, and in September he enrolled at the New Directions Alternative Education Center in Manassas, which serves students who had problems in their traditional school.
But he lasted only a week, said Elmer Magyar, the principal. Rodger's mother said other students beat him up.
Despite his problems, Rodger remained sweet-natured, his mother and stepfather said.
"He tried to help everyone," his stepfather said. "This was the problem."
Early Saturday, a friend called Rodger from Springfield and asked for a ride back to Woodbridge, his family said. Rodger had been drinking beer in his room with a friend, who had fallen asleep, they said. Rodger didn't have a driver's license but loved to drive. He took the keys to his friend's Nissan Pathfinder and headed out, accompanied by another Honduran youth living in the house, his parents said.
At 3:20 a.m., the state trooper clocked him going 90 mph on I-95.
Licklider, the police spokesman, said the trooper handcuffed Roger and put him inside his patrol car, locking the door. The trooper then went to look at the Pathfinder. Suddenly, he looked back at his cruiser and noticed that the passenger door was open.
The trooper then looked over the bridge, saw Rodriguez in the water and called for rescue authorities. When the boy's body was discovered, his hands were still handcuffed.
Licklider said that "occasionally" people escape from locked cruisers because they can slip out of their seat belts and push against the lock button to release the door.
"This kid was driving 90 miles per hour in a 55-mile-per-hour zone, without a license, and he's intoxicated," Licklider said. "I am just thinking to myself that [Rodriguez] did not realize where he was at, that he was jumping into a body of water."
View all comments that have been posted about this article.