Mother of woman killed in Salinas shooting speaks out

A mother is speaking out after her daughter was killed during a standoff with Salinas Police.

She says she is shocked and confused, but made it very clear, she does not condone some of the life choices Brenda Rodriguez Mendoza had made.

Mireya Mendoza Hernandez lives in Mexico, but had regular communication with her daughter in Salinas.

Brenda just had her own little girl, but Mireya says when child protective services took the baby away, it sent Brenda spiraling into a deep depression.

“She told me ‘they’re going to kill me, they don’t want to give me my daughter back.'”

Mireya still has pictures of her daughter on her cellphone. Last Friday she was on the phone with Brenda trying to understand what was happening, after police say she barricaded herself inside a vehicle with a handgun.

“They told me not to call her anymore, that they were going to fix things. Then they went and killed her. I trusted the police and the law,” says Mendoza Hernandez.

But Mireya says Brenda was already suffering. Three weeks before the police shooting, CPS took her daughter away after a long struggle with drug addiction.

“She started very young doing drugs. I helped her with that battle quite a bit…she wanted to be with friends all the time. But she did have a very good heart,” says Mendoza Hernandez.

But Mireya says Brenda was trying to turn her life around and wanted to finish school, especially with her one-month old daughter in mind.

“With the baby she saw a light in her life and they took her life…at such a young age.”

Services for Brenda are Sunday and her body will be taken back to Mexico, where she was born.

Brenda’s last words before hanging up the phone were “I love you, Mom.”

Mireya tells us she wants custody of her grandchild and is taking the proper steps to do that. She says she also plans on taking legal action.

To view the original story about the standoff, click here.