Rocha moves on after traumatic event

He was just doing what he was supposed to do.

Police aide Edgar Rocha's Thursday shift started like all the rest. He put on the bulletproof vest he had purchased himself, his aide uniform and jacket, and set out for the campus to meet up with one of his co-workers.

Just after his shift started at 12:30 p.m., on Nov. 8, 2007, he got a call over the radio from a Police Services officer to split up with a fellow police aide and investigate a possible auto theft in a parking lot on the Shane Drive side of campus.

Rocha, also known as "Roach," was told to stand at Lot 9, now Lot 10, and to report any suspicious activity. He was looking for a suspect that was allegedly breaking into students' cars in the parking lot behind the Police Services Office.

"I was looking for this Asian guy," Rocha said. "Then I see this black guy walking around. Normally, I'd ignore him, but he kept looking back at me."

Rocha called in the suspicious activity of the person who did not match the suspected car thief's description, heard there was an officer in the Shane Drive area and went over to talk to him.

As a Police Services patrol car came closer to the suspicious looking man, he "darted," Rocha said.

"I was (standing) in his way up Shane Drive," Rocha said.

After that, all he remembers is taking two bullets to the stomach.

"I didn't hear anything. I couldn't move my leg," he said.

Rocha had been shot a block off campus, at the corner of Shane Drive and Mills Avenue, and needed immediate medical attention in order to survive.

"I didn't know what was going on," he said. "People were telling me to stay down, that I had been shot."

One bullet was stopped by Rocha's bulletproof vest, but one ripped through the vest injuring his stomach, pancreas, intestines, liver and diaphragm. Another struck him in his thigh, only an inch from an artery.

Change of direction

Today, 18 months later, Rocha is  back at Contra Costa College, on a different career track, but the same person he was three semesters ago.

"It's regular Roach," Senior Parking Officer Vidal Garcia said. "The same old guy."

Garcia was Rocha's commanding officer for the two years Rocha served as an aide at CCC and said Rocha is a happy, joyful and dependable person.

Although he was on his way to becoming a police officer and would have enrolled in the police academy by now, Rocha is currently struggling to find his way.

"It's definitely different," he said. "Then, I had a goal. Now, I'm confused. I don't know."

Garcia said, "He was shaken up, but who wouldn't be?"

Rocha said he is trying to figure out if he is coming to class for a reason or if he is just wasting his time.

"Right now, I'm waiting for something to inspire me," he said.

Rocha is considering a career in social work. He said he is taking general education and psychology classes at CCC this semester and is working toward his associate degree in psychology.

"I think his career path has changed from law enforcement to social services," Police Services Sgt. Jose Oliveira said. "(He can) have a direct impact on young men who do evil stuff — change their paths."

Procedures examined

The shooting not only affected Rocha, but also the entire Contra Costa Community College District Police Services department as the Governing Board approved funding to buy bulletproof vests for all police aides shortly after the event.

"We were fortunate and he was fortunate (to have survived)," Police Services Chief Charles Gibson said. "It could have been a lot worse."

Gibson said the districtwide police department had a major incident board of review that looked specifically at the shooting to see what went right and wrong.

In light of the shooting, Gibson and current police aide Oscar Mercado said communication has improved.

"I use the radio more and communicate more when I'm walking around the lower lots," said Mercado, who was a first-semester aide and got a text message in class when Rocha was shot. "I let the dispatcher know where I'm at."

Gibson said Police Services is working with outside agencies, as well as inside the department, to improve and enforce the importance of following proper procedures when on patrol.

He said an alarm can go off 10 times without incident, but the 11th time, when people have their guard down, something could go wrong, which is why Gibson said it is important to "battle complacency."

"It was a tragic incident that happened," he said. "(But) it brings people closer together. A lot of (police) aides came to help (Rocha) and had to grow up real quick."

Two of the first police aides on the scene were Kenny Purizaga and Jaclyn Meeker.

Quick action

Meeker was in the Police Services Office on campus when she heard an officer screaming on the radio.

She said she heard, "Man down! Aide is down! Police aide is down!"

"The dispatcher came in. I didn't know the locations so I told her I'd find out what was going on," Meeker said.

She ran out of the office and saw Purizaga running toward Shane Drive on the east side of campus, and she followed.

Because it was just before 1 p.m. when the shooting happened, both morning and day shifts were on duty. Meeker was trying to figure out who had been shot, and when she saw the other two police aides, she knew immediately Rocha was the one shot.