LAPD body camera footage that captured a recent shooting at a North Hollywood Burlington Coat Factory has been released to the public.
The clip shows cops opening fire on a suspect inside the retail store, with the shooting leaving the suspect and a teenage girl dead. At one point, the video shows armed officers walk around the store, when they come upon blood, a woman who’d been assaulted, and the suspect standing nearby. The police then fired at the suspect, who had been assaulting customers with a bike lock and chain.
Reportedly unbeknownst to the police, the 14-year-old girl, Valentina Orellana-Peralta, was hiding in a dressing room with her mother during the incident and one of the bullets pierced the wall and fatally struck her in the chest. Her death has since been ruled a homicide, TMZ reports. She had been in the store to try on dresses for her quinceañera.
“The girl’s American dream has been taken from her,” Valentina’s uncle, Rodrigo Orellana, told Chilevision. “Everyone fled to to dressing rooms and, unfortunately, the bullet found her,” he said. “They’re supposed to be the best police department in the world and they shot her.”
According to TMZ, the mother said that an explosion threw them to the ground, and that afterward, police didn’t help them as her daughter lay on the floor.
According to a statement, the family has retained Ben Crump as an attorney.
“On Thursday, Valentina was trying on clothes in a North Hollywood store’s dressing room when she was struck and killed by an officer’s stray bullet from his assault rifle. According to the LAPD, the officer was firing at a suspect when he shot and killed the young girl,” the statement said, in part.
