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Inset: Valentina Orellana-Peralta (Panish, Shea, Ravipudi LLP). Background: A still image from the body-worn camera footage of the shooting that took Valentina”s life (LAPD).
This week, a Los Angeles police officer testified in the ongoing wrongful death trial concerning a tragic incident involving a 14-year-old girl who lost her life at the hands of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) while she was shopping for Christmas dresses.
In a heartbreaking event that occurred in December 2021, Valentina Orellana-Peralta was fatally shot by a bullet that pierced the wall of a dressing room at a Burlington store located in North Hollywood, a neighborhood within the San Fernando Valley.
The incident unfolded as officers were discharging their weapons at 24-year-old Daniel Elena-Lopez, who was suspected of assaulting another woman inside the store.
“While conducting a search for any additional suspects and victims, officers discovered the girl had been struck by gunfire,” stated a police press release issued alongside the body-worn camera footage of the incident. “She was pronounced dead at the scene. Initial investigations suggest that the victim was hit by one of the rounds fired by an officer targeting the suspect.”
According to LAPD reports, the suspect’s aggressive behavior involved attacking customers with a bike lock. The family of Valentina Orellana-Peralta highlighted the disparity between the weapons used in the altercation and the force applied by the police.
“You don’t bring an AR-15 to a bike lock fight,” Nick Rowley, an attorney for the girl’s family, told reporters this week, according to Los Angeles-based ABC West Coast flagship KABC.
The trial began on Wednesday. On Thursday, LAPD Officer William Doresy Jones Jr., who fired three rounds from his rifle that day, including the bullet that took the teenager’s life, took the stand.
“Based on the totality of everything, the information I gathered at the scene, I believed it could arise to the situation where deadly force may have to be used,” he testified, KABC reported.
Jones has previously said he thought there was an active shooter in the store. The girl’s family drew a distinction from such testimony.
“There was a senior officer on deck that said we have a suspect with shorts on the second floor with a bike lock,” attorney Haythan Faraj countered. “That was the information his own superior gave him. He chose to ignore that. He chose to ignore other cues, and that’s why we’re in the situation we’re in.”
External investigations have yielded dueling results.
The Los Angeles Police Commission previously ruled that only one of Jones’ three shots was justified. Meanwhile, former LAPD Chief Michel Moore found that all three of Jones’ shots were unjustified.
The officer previously told the Use of Force Review Board he “mistook the bike lock the man was wielding for a gun.”
Jones also previously said he believed the wall behind Elena-Lopez was brick leading to the exterior of the building, rather than a dressing room partition which would have necessarily been relatively thin.
The family is seeking $100 million in damages on theories of wrongful death, negligence, and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
The original petition details the final moments of the girl’s life and the effect that traumatic experience had on her mother.
Soledad Peralta “felt her daughter’s body go limp and watched helplessly as her daughter died while still in her arms,” the filing reads.
The lawsuit generally alleges the LAPD failed to adequately train and supervise the officers in question and “fostered an environment that allowed and permitted this shooting to occur.”
“Valentina had her entire life in front of her, and it was taken in an instant due to reckless decisions made by the very people who were sworn to protect her,” Rowley said. “We intend to hold LAPD fully accountable for taking an innocent young woman’s life.”