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A wrongful-death lawsuit filed against the Los Angeles Police Department over the 2021 fatal shooting of 14-year-old Valentina Orellana-Peralta is set to begin trial Wednesday, according to The Associated Press. The case centers on what the family says happened when officers entered a Burlington clothing store in the San Fernando Valley’s North Hollywood neighborhood during an attack. The suit seeks to hold the department responsible for Orellana-Peralta’s death and for what it alleges were failures in training, supervision, and oversight.
Valentina Orellana-Peralta was shopping for Christmas clothes with her mother in the store on Dec. 23, 2021, when she was struck by a bullet that went through a dressing-room wall, the lawsuit states. The bullet, according to the account described by AP, fatally wounded her after a man wielding a bike lock attacked two women in the building.
AP reported that officers were responding to calls for help after the attack when armed officers walked through the store. Officer William Dorsey Jones Jr. fired his rifle three times, killing the man and Orellana-Peralta, according to the AP account of the case.
The wrongful-death suit was filed by Orellana-Peralta’s parents and alleges wrongful death, negligence, and negligent infliction of emotional distress, AP reported. The filing includes a description from her mother, Soledad Peralta, saying she “felt her daughter’s body go limp and watched helplessly as her daughter died while still in her arms,” as quoted in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit also alleges that the LAPD failed to adequately train and supervise the responding officers. It further contends that the department “fostered an environment that allowed and permitted this shooting to occur,” according to AP’s account of the allegations.
Nick Rowley, the attorney representing the family, said the case is meant to require accountability from the city and LAPD. In a quote reported by AP, Rowley said: “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,” and that they “intend to hold LAPD fully accountable for taking an innocent young woman’s life.”
The department’s legal position was not immediately provided in the AP report. AP said the Los Angeles city attorney’s office, representing the LAPD, did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
The trial follows findings from prior internal reviews of the shooting. In 2022, the Los Angeles Police Commission, a civilian oversight board, ruled that Jones was justified in firing once, but that his two subsequent shots were out of policy, AP reported. AP also said that then-Police Chief Michel Moore previously found in his own review that all three shots were unjustified.
AP reported that Jones told the LAPD’s Use of Force Review Board that he believed someone inside the store was shooting people and that he mistook the bike lock the man was wielding for a gun. Jones also said he thought a wall behind the man backed up against an exterior brick wall, when, AP reported, the area contained the women’s dressing rooms.
Rowley also referenced other police shooting litigation involving a large settlement. AP reported that Rowley recently secured a $30 million settlement from the city of San Diego for the killing of 16-year-old Konoa Wilson, which AP said was among the largest settlements in a police killing case in U.S. history and surpassed a $27 million settlement that Minneapolis agreed to in the lawsuit over the killing of George Floyd.