Jury finds city of LA not liable in death of 14-year-old girl hit by
police officer's stray bullet
[May 08, 2026]
By JAIMIE DING
LOS ANGELES
(AP) — A jury Thursday found the city of Los Angeles was not liable in
the killing of a 14-year-old girl who was hit by a police officer's
stray bullet during a shootout while Christmas shopping in 2021 with her
mother. |
The casket containing 14-year-old Valentina Orellana-Peralta, killed on
Dec. 23, 2021, by a LAPD police officer's stray bullet while shopping
with her mother, is readied for her funeral at the City of Refuge Church
in Gardena, Calif., Jan. 10, 2022. (AP Photo/David Swanson, File) |
|
The ruling came after a nearly monthlong trial in the wrongful
death lawsuit filed against the LA Police Department by the
parents of Valentina Orellana-Peralta. She was at a Burlington
store in the North Hollywood neighborhood on Dec. 23, 2021, when
she was struck by a bullet that had gone through the dressing
room wall.
The jury sided with the city 9-3 after deliberating for just
over a day.
The family's attorney, Nick Rowley, in a video statement called
it “the most devastating loss of my career” and said he doesn't
understand the jury's decision.
Los Angeles City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto said the city
shares the family's grief but the jury made the correct decision
and that the city stands by the officer who will carry the
“burden of Valentina's death with him for many years.”
Police responded to calls for help after a man wielding a bike
lock attacked two women in the building. Officer William Dorsey
Jones Jr. was part of a group of armed officers that walked
through the store. He fired his rifle three times, killing the
man and Orellana-Peralta.
The lawsuit filed by the girl’s parents alleged wrongful death,
negligence and negligent infliction of emotional distress. The
jury found the city not negligent on all accounts.
Jones told the LAPD’s Use of Force Review Board that he mistook
the bike lock the man was holding for a gun. He said he thought
the man stood in front of an exterior brick wall, when the area
actually contained the women’s dressing rooms. One of the
bullets he fired ricocheted off the ground behind the man and
went through the wall, hitting Orellana-Peralta.
The Los Angeles Police Commission, a civilian oversight board,
ruled in 2022 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.
A report by the California Attorney General’s office in April
2024 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.
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