Valentina Orellana-Peralta: Jury finds LAPD not liable for Burlington store shooting of California teen
Jury sides with LAPD in Burlington shooting
The jury has sided with LAPD in the Burlington department store shooting that killed Valentina Orellana-Peralta, a teen girl who was hiding inside one of the dressing rooms during an active crime scene.
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.
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.
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."
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