Jury members ruled Thursday that the city of Los Angeles was not liable for the death of 14-year-old Valentina Orellana-Peralta, who was struck by a police officer’s stray bullet during a shootout while Christmas shopping in 2021, according to the verdict in a wrongful-death lawsuit.
The ruling came after a nearly monthlong trial brought by Orellana-Peralta’s parents against the Los Angeles Police Department, the sources said. Orellana-Peralta was at a Burlington store in North Hollywood on Dec. 23, 2021, when she was hit after a bullet went through a dressing-room wall, according to testimony summarized in the case reporting.
The jury found for the city 9-3 following deliberations that lasted just over a day, and it also found the city not negligent on all counts presented at trial. The parents’ lawsuit had asserted wrongful death, negligence and negligent infliction of emotional distress tied to the police response, the report said.
After the decision, the family’s attorney, Nick Rowley, said in a video statement that it was “the most devastating loss of my career” and that he does not understand the jury’s decision, according to the reporting. Rowley’s comments came as the city prepared to respond to the outcome in the litigation.
Los Angeles City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto said the city shares the family’s grief but that the jury reached the correct decision. She also said the city stands by the officer involved, and that Officer William Dorsey Jones Jr. will carry the “burden of Valentina’s death with him for many years,” according to the account.
The shooting began after police responded to calls for help in a building where, police said, a man wielding a bike lock attacked two women, the reporting described. Officer William Dorsey Jones Jr. was part of a group of armed officers who walked through the store, and he fired his rifle three times—killing the man and Orellana-Peralta—according to the report.
Jones told the LAPD’s Use of Force Review Board that he mistook the bike lock the man held for a gun. He said he thought the man was standing in front of an exterior brick wall, when the area instead contained the women’s dressing rooms; the reporting said one of the bullets ricocheted off the ground behind the man and went through the wall, hitting Orellana-Peralta.
The reporting also described prior findings by police oversight bodies. 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. Then-Police Chief Michel Moore found in his own review that all three shots were unjustified, according to the report.
In April 2024, a report by the California Attorney General’s office found that Jones acted with the intent to defend himself from what he reasonably believed to be imminent death or serious bodily injury and decided not to file criminal charges, the reporting said.