BURBANK, Calif.—Citing four reasons that include alleged judicial error, attorneys for the parents of a teen girl who was inadvertently shot to death by a Los Angeles police officer in a North Hollywood store are asking a judge to grant a new trial in their negligence lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles.
On May 7, a Burbank Superior Court jury ruled in favor of the city by a 9–3 margin.
The 14-year-old girl, Valentina Orellana-Peralta, was killed Dec. 23, 2021, while shopping with her mother for Christmas dresses at the Burlington store at 12121 Victory Blvd. The teen was in a second-floor dressing room when a bullet fired by Officer William Dorsey Jones passed through a wall and struck her.
Police had gone into the store in search of a suspect who assaulted multiple people with a metal bicycle lock. That suspect, 24-year-old Daniel Elena Lopez, was also killed in the shooting. Police said at the time that a bullet Jones fired ricocheted off the floor, passed through a dressing room wall and struck Valentina.
The plaintiffs were Valentina’s father and mother, Juan Pablo Orellana Larenas and Soledad Peralta.
“This motion turns on the only question the jury answered: whether Officer William Jones was negligent when he fired three rifle rounds inside a crowded store, one of which killed 14-year-old Valentina Orellana Peralta,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys state in court papers filed July 17 with Judge Frank Tavelman in advance of an Aug. 21 hearing on the retrial motion.
According to the parents’ lawyers, a new trial is warranted because the judge did not allow jurors to hear then-Police Chief Michel Moore’s conclusion after an investigation that no reasonably trained officer in Jones’ position would have believed the use of deadly force was reasonable and abided by LAPD policy.
Second, the jury was never told that Jones’ perception that Lopez had a gun rather than a bicycle lock was reasonable, yet the instruction given jurors let them excuse the shooting based on whatever Jones said he perceived, according to the family’s lawyers’ court papers.
The parents’ lawyers further contend that the city was allowed to let a surprise expert witness testify during trial and that the defense made improper statements during closing arguments.
In 2024, the state Attorney General’s Office announced it would not pursue any criminal charges against the officer, concluding that the evidence did not show, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he acted without the intent to defend himself and others from what he reasonably believed to be imminent death or serious bodily injury.
The Attorney General’s Office did recommend that the LAPD consider making changes to “improve lines of communication in response to ‘immediate action and rapid deployment’ scenarios.”
