The Hayward Police Department is still refusing to release the names of two Fremont police detectives who fatally shot a pregnant 16-year-old girl during a covert armed robbery investigation in mid-March.

Information obtained by The Argus through a public records request reveals the two detectives were dressed in plain clothes at the time of the shooting and may not have been identifiable as police officers when trying to make an arrest leading up to it.

In denying requests from this news organization, Hayward City Attorney Michael Lawson said in a letter the police department “will not be releasing the names of the officers who discharged their firearms because doing so would compromise the safety of the officers involved in this matter.”

But the letter did say that during the March 14 incident, Fremont detectives were conducting surveillance on a car police believed was connected to multiple armed robberies in Fremont and around the Bay Area.

Hayward police said in a prior statement that detectives attempted to stop the car, which had four people inside, at the City View Apartment Homes complex at 25200 Carlos Bee Blvd., near California State University, East Bay.

“As they contacted the occupants, the driver of the suspect vehicle suddenly rammed the detective’s police vehicles injuring two Fremont detectives,” according to the statement.

“During the incident, Fremont detectives were forced to fire their duty weapons at the suspect driving the vehicle and one of the female occupants was struck by gunfire,” the statement added. The girl fatally shot was a 16-year-old Antioch resident, later identified by her family as Elena Mondragon. Police confirmed she was in the first trimester of her pregnancy.

The car drove out of the complex after the shooting and later crashed near the intersection of Campus Drive and Oakes Drive, police said. While Mondragon was taken to a trauma center where she later died, two others in the car were arrested and one man escaped. He was arrested the following night in San Francisco, police said. Both Fremont officers were treated for minor injuries and released from the hospital.

“Prior to the incident, the two Fremont officers were wearing plain clothes in an unmarked police vehicle while conducting surveillance of suspects in a covert operation until they exited their vehicle to initiate an arrest,” Lawson said in his letter.

“The officers were not identifiable as police officers,” Lawson said. He did not specify whether the detectives verbally identified themselves as police to the people in the car or showed police credentials at the time of the attempted arrest and subsequent shooting.

The Hayward Police Department and the city attorney’s office declined to elaborate on details of the shooting when reached by telephone this week.

Lawson’s letter also noted, “The suspects in this case, including all four individuals in the vehicle, were a crew that is associated with a violent gang located in the city of Oakland with ties to the city of Hayward.”

He also said the gang is known to threaten police on social media and has had violent confrontations with officers in the East Bay and the Central Valley.

The two detectives from Fremont are part of the Southern Alameda County Major Crimes Task Force, which consists of representatives of state and local law enforcement agencies, including Newark and Union City police and the California Highway Patrol. The unit focuses on “criminal street gangs and illegal narcotic and firearm possession,” according to the Fremont police website.

“Disclosure of the identities of these officers would not only jeopardize prior cases where the officers were key participants, but would likely compromise the ability of the officers from working for the Task Force in the future,” Lawson’s letter said.

An investigation into the shooting is being conducted by the Fremont and Hayward police departments, as well as the Alameda County District Attorney’s office.