Opening statements were expected to begin Wednesday in the trial of a lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles after a 14-year-old girl was struck by a LAPD officer’s bullet and died in 2021.
Valentina Orellana Peralta was in a dressing room, trying on clothes for Christmas, at the time of the shooting. She was struck by a police bullet that passed through the walls.
An LAPD officer, later identified as William Jones, opened fire inside the clothing store to stop an assault suspect. One of his bullets ricocheted off the floor and struck the 14-year-old.
Newly released video shows the moment LAPD officers encountered a man who was attacking shoppers in a North Hollywood Burlington Coat Factory. Beverly White reports for the NBC4 News at 11 p.m. on Dec. 27, 2021.
After California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced that his office would not pursue criminal charges against Officer Jones, Soledad Peralta and Juan Pablo Orellana Larenas, Valentina’s parents, filed a civil lawsuit against the LAPD.
When Bonta announced the decision, calling the deadly shooting an incident of being at “the wrong place at the wrong time,” the girl’s family was “crushed,” according to the family spokesperson.
“This avoids all oversight, all accountability that needs to be had,” Sennett Devermont, family spokesperson, said in 2024.
The trial is expected to continue for several days at the Burbank Courthouse.
The body-camera footage from Dec.23, 2021 showed the assault suspect attacking a woman on the second floor of the Burlington store, repeating beating her with a cable bike lock. The suspect was later shot by officers and died at the scene.
The trial began as the city of Los Angeles faces an overspending gap of more than $208 million, partly due to legal settlements.