Trial to begin in lawsuit over fatal Los Angeles police shooting of 14-year-old girl in 2021

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A wrongful-death lawsuit filed against the Los Angeles Police Department for an officer’s fatal shooting of a 14-year-old girl in a clothing store is set to begin trial Wednesday.

Valentina Orellana-Peralta was shopping for Christmas clothes with her mother at a Burlington store in the San Fernando Valley’s North Hollywood neighborhood on Dec. 23, 2021, when she was struck by a bullet that had gone through the dressing room wall.

Police were responding to calls for help after a man wielding a bike lock attacked two women in the building. As armed officers walked through the store, Officer William Dorsey Jones Jr. fired his rifle three times, killing the man and Orellana-Peralta.

The lawsuit filed by the girl’s parents alleges wrongful death, negligence and negligent infliction of emotional distress.

Her mother Soledad Peralta “felt her daughter’s body go limp and watched helplessly as her daughter died while still in her arms,” the lawsuit states.

It alleges that the LAPD failed to adequately train and supervise the responding officers and “fostered an environment that allowed and permitted this shooting to occur.”

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“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,” said Nick Rowley, who represents the family. “We intend to hold LAPD fully accountable for taking an innocent young woman’s life.”

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The Los Angeles city attorney’s office, representing the LAPD, did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

The Los Angeles Police Commission, a civilian oversight board, ruled in 2022 that Jones was justified in firing once but that his two subsequent shots were out of policy. Then-Police Chief Michel Moore previously found in his own review that all three shots were unjustified.

Jones told the LAPD’s Use of Force Review Board that he believed someone inside the store was shooting people and mistook the bike lock the man was wielding for a gun. He said he thought a wall behind the man backed up against an exterior brick wall when in fact, the area contained the women’s dressing rooms.

Rowley recently secured a $30 million settlement from the city of San Diego for the killing of 16-year-old Konoa Wilson, one of the largest settlements in a police killing case in U.S. history. It surpassed the $27 million settlement that the city of Minneapolis agreed to pay in the lawsuit over the killing of George Floyd.