FAMILY OF 14-YEAR-OLD GIRL SHOT BY L.A. POLICE FILES SUIT

The parents of a 14-year-old girl killed by Los Angeles police in a clothing store last year have filed a lawsuit against the department and the officer whose rifle round pierced a dressing room wall.

Valentina Orellana Peralta and her mother were shopping for Christmas clothes on Dec. 23 at a Burlington store in the San Fernando Valley’s North Hollywood neighborhood. They were inside a dressing room when they heard screams and Orellana Peralta locked the door.

Elsewhere in the store, 24-yearold Daniel Elena Lopez was behaving erratically and wielding a bike lock. He brutally attacked two women.

Following 911 calls, Los Angeles police walked through the store in a formation, body-camera video shows. Officer William Dorsey Jones Jr., wielding a rif le, pushed to the front of the pack even as other officers repeatedly said “slow down” and “slow it down.”

The officers saw a woman crawling on the blood-stained floor and Lopez on the other side of the aisle, according to the video footage. “Hold up! Hold up!” another officer screamed just before Jones fired three shots.

One of the bullets went through the dressing room wall and fatally struck Orellana Peralta as her mother, Soledad Peralta, held her. Peralta “felt her daughter’s body go limp and watched helplessly as her daughter died while still in her arms,” the lawsuit states.

Orellana Peralta’s father, Juan Pablo Orellana Larenas, and Peralta allege that LAPD failed to adequately train and supervise the responding officers and “fostered an environment that allowed and permitted this shooting to occur,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on July 14, alleges wrongful death and negligence, as well as negligent infliction of emotional distress, and seeks a jury trial and unspecified damages. In addition to the LAPD and Jones, the lawsuit also names the city of Los Angeles and Burlington Stores Inc. as defendants.