LAPD found not liable in deadly shooting of teen Valentina Orellana-Peralta at Burlington store in North Hollywood
BURBANK, Calif. (KABC) — A jury in a civil trial found that the Los Angeles Police Department was not liable in connection with an officer’s fatal shooting of a 14-year-old girl in a Burlington store in North Hollywood.
The verdict in favor of the LAPD was announced in court Thursday morning.
The wrongful-death lawsuit centered on the death of Valentina Orellana-Peralta and was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court by her family.
Orellana-Peralta was shopping for Christmas clothes with her mother at a Burlington store in North Hollywood 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.
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 stated. It alleged that the LAPD failed to adequately train and supervise the responding officers and “fostered an environment that allowed and permitted this shooting to occur.”
“You don’t bring an AR-15 to a bike lock fight,” attorney Nick Rowley, who represents the family, told reporters last month.
Early on in the trial, an attorney for the family held up a wooden replica rifle in the courtroom to show jurors the weapon used in the shooting while body camera video played, capturing chaotic moments just before the gunfire.
The police commission later found parts of the shooting were out of policy. The California Department of Justice declined to file criminal charges.
The family sought $100 million in damages.
The LAPD declined to comment during the trial, citing pending litigation. Attorneys for the city also declined to speak.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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