A year later, a fatal California police shooting still raises questions

On a small white table outside a Santa Ana furniture store, next to a stack of vanilla-flavored chonca pan dulces, religious candles surround three framed photographs of a smiling young Latino man.

Taped above one those photos is a simple request:

“Justicia para Noe Rodriguez .”

Justice for Noe Rodriguez.

That goal, and the man, remain at the center of a dispute that still roils Santa Ana a year after Rodriguez’s death.

Some basic facts about the shooting are publicly available and not in dispute.

Rodriguez, a 31-year-old husband and father from Santa Ana, was fatally shot by two Santa Ana police officers on Dec. 1, 2024 , near the spot of what is now his makeshift memorial. His widow says Rodriguez struggled with his mental health, and that in recent years his problems had become