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).
A Los Angeles police officer took the stand this week on the second day of a wrongful death trial over a 14-year-old girl killed by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) while she was trying on dresses for Christmas.
In December 2021, Valentina Orellana-Peralta was killed by a bullet that went through the dressing room wall at a Burlington in North Hollywood – a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley area.
Law enforcement, at the time, were firing rounds at Daniel Elena-Lopez, 24, who was believed to be attacking another woman.
“During a search for additional suspects and victims, officers found the girl and discovered she had been struck by gunfire,” police said in a press release accompanying a body-worn camera video of the shooting. “She was pronounced dead at the scene. At this preliminary phase of the investigation, it is believed that victim was struck by one of the rounds fired by an officer at the suspect.”
The suspect who allegedly elicited the gunfire had been attacking shoppers with a bike lock, according to the LAPD. The family of the slain girl contrasted the weapons used in each instance of violence.
“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.”
