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Jury sides with city in teen's wrongful death lawsuit
In a 9-3 verdict, the jury found that the LAPD was not liable for the shooting death of 14-year-old Valentina Orellana-Peralta.
LOS ANGELES - A jury reached a verdict Thursday following the deadly shooting of 14-year-old Valentina Orellana-Peralta, who was killed by a stray bullet fired by a Los Angeles Police Department officer inside a North Hollywood Burlington store in Dec. 2021.
What we know:
In a 9-3 verdict, the jury found that the LAPD was not liable for the teen’s shooting death. Her family had sought more than $100 million in the lawsuit.
Jurors deliberated for a little more than a day before siding with the city.
The backstory:
On Dec. 23, 2021, Orellana-Peralta was trying on Christmas dresses with her mother in the second-floor dressing room of the Burlington store along Victory Boulevard, when Los Angeles police responded to a call of a man accused of attacking multiple people with a bike lock. As the encounter between the man armed with a bike lock, later identified as Daniel Lopez, 24, and police intensified, one of the officers — identified as William Dorsey Jones Jr. — fired his rifle. That was when the stray bullet hit and killed the 14-year-old girl. Lopez also died in the incident.
More than four years after the girl's death, LAPD is being sued for wrongful death.
"It's a wrongful death case, but it's also a negligent infliction of emotional distress and PTSD case," said Nick Rowley, the attorney representing Valentina's grieving family. "Valentina's mother was holding her when she was shot with the AR-15. She had her daughter die in her arms in the most unimaginable way."
PREVIOUS COVERAGE:
- No charges against LAPD officer whose bullet fatally struck teen in Burlington store
- LAPD wrongful death trial begins over 14-year-old's fatal Burlington dressing room shooting