The parents of a girl killed in a clothing store dressing room by a Los Angeles police officer’s stray bullet last week called for justice on Tuesday, the day after police released video showing the chaotic moments leading to the fatal shooting.
Valentina Orellana-Peralta, 14, was inadvertently shot dead in a North Hollywood store on Thursday last week when a police officer opened fire on a man who was bludgeoning another shopper.
The suspect was killed, but police said that one round from the officer’s rifle apparently pierced the wall of a fitting room where the girl was hiding, out of view, with her mother, striking the teenager in the chest.
Photo: AP
The girl, who had been shopping for a dress, died instantly in her mother’s arms.
“It is like my whole heart has been ripped out of my body,” her father, Juan Pablo Orellana Larenas, said in a statement read by the family’s attorney, Ben Crump, at a news conference outside of Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) headquarters. “We want justice for our daughter. Valentina’s life mattered.”
The parents wept as they stood next to a wreath with flowers and photographs of their Chilean-born daughter.
They wore signs that read: “Justice for my daughter,” written in English and Spanish.
The parents and their lawyers did not specify how they would like justice to be served.
The parents described their daughter as an exceptional student who aspired to become an engineer.
“She had great dreams of becoming an American citizen. She wanted to be here in the United States because this was the land of opportunity,” Crump said.
Orellana-Peralta was born and raised in Chile’s capital, Santiago, and traveled to the US six months ago with her mother to visit an older sister, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Her mother had been working on documentation to permanently stay in the US with her daughter.
Police Chief Michel Moore issued a statement promising a “thorough, complete and transparent” investigation, while the California Attorney General’s Office has also opened an independent inquiry.
Audio-video footage from several officers’ body-worn cameras showed the final, violent moments of the incident as police arrive on the scene with guns drawn and close in on the suspect, who was bludgeoning a woman.
The man, identified as Daniel Elena-Lopez, 24, died at the scene. The Los Angeles Times has reported he had several prior felony convictions.
The girl was found shot to death shortly afterward in the dressing room as police searched the store for any additional victims, police said, adding that the officer who fired the shots has been placed on administrative leave pending the investigation.
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