Teen Girl Shot By Police Was Seeking New Life, Family Says

LOS ANGELES — She had been successful the United States for little than a year, but already her main astatine a tech-focused charter schoolhouse successful Los Angeles knew her arsenic a beardown pupil successful mathematics and physics.

In the days starring up to Christmas, 14-year-old Valentina Orellana-Peralta talked astir her beingness with her father, who had been readying to sojourn from Chile for the holiday. She wanted to instrumentality him to a Lakers crippled to spot LeBron James play. She had ordered a skateboard and wanted to caput backmost to schoolhouse with moves to amusement off.

On their mode to a Burlington store successful the San Fernando Valley connected Thursday to store for a Christmas dress, Ms. Orellana-Peralta talked to her parent astir her bigger dreams, excessively — of attending college. Above all, the teen longed to go an American citizen.

But it was successful the United States that those dreams were chopped short, Ms. Orellana-Peralta’s parents said done tears connected Tuesday, their voices disintegrating into sobs astatine a quality league extracurricular the office of the Los Angeles Police Department.

In what the authorities person described arsenic a horrific mistake, Ms. Orellana-Peralta was killed by a constabulary slug that ricocheted disconnected the level of the store successful North Hollywood arsenic an serviceman opened occurrence astatine Daniel Elena Lopez, 24. Mr. Elena Lopez, surveillance footage showed, had been attacking shoppers with a motorcycle fastener earlier they arrived.

“This is what my girl recovered here: death,” said Juan Pablo Orellana Larenas, her father, flanked by the family’s attorneys, led by Ben Crump, the civilian rights lawyer who has represented the families of high-profile victims of constabulary killings astir the country, including George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Soledad Peralta, Ms. Orellana-Peralta’s mother, recounted however she had been trying connected apparel with her girl successful a dressing country arsenic a commotion started outside. They stayed determination to hide. Her daughter, she recalled, locked the doorway to support them both.

As the large noises continued outside, they huddled unneurotic and prayed. Then suddenly, Ms. Peralta recalled, they were some knocked to the crushed successful what felt similar an explosion. She saw her daughter’s limp assemblage connected the level and began screaming for assistance — a chilling dependable that was audible successful officers’ assemblage camera videos of the incident. The miss died successful her mother’s arms.

When constabulary officers entered the room, Ms. Peralta said, they forced her to permission her daughter’s side.

“She meant the satellite to me, her family, her friends, her classmates,” she said. “Now our saccharine angel is gone forever.”

The lawsuit has struck a nervus successful Los Angeles, wherever debates implicit transgression justness betterment and constabulary accountability person raged for years, adjacent earlier tens of thousands of Angelenos poured into the city’s streets during past year’s Black Lives Matter demonstrations, spurred by the sidesplitting of Mr. Floyd by a constabulary serviceman who was aboriginal convicted of murder. The anguish has besides been fueled by a continuing drawstring of constabulary shootings crossed California.

Family members astatine the quality league wore signs astir their necks that work “Justice for Valentina,” and section activists stood by, wearing shirts that work “Black Lives Matter,” and “Defund the police.” As the quality league came to a close, immoderate lifted their fists and chanted, “Valentina’s beingness mattered.”

Many critics of the constabulary person expressed outrage implicit aspects of the shooting — the velocity with which an serviceman opened occurrence connected Mr. Elena Lopez though helium did not person a gun, the information that constabulary officers did not guarantee that the country was wide of bystanders.

“You guys don’t person the quality to conscionable tackle him to the floor?” said Chloe Cheyenne Rogers, an activistic who started the Justice for Valentina petition, which has astir 5,000 signatures. “You can’t usage immoderate parts of your grooming to beryllium capable to instrumentality that idiosyncratic successful a mode that doesn’t see your battle rifle?”

Ms. Rogers, who shared the accusation connected her ain Instagram account, said she did truthful to marque definite that the serviceman was “not being protected, oregon sheltered, by the L.A.P.D.”

In the footage, released connected Monday arsenic portion of a 35-minute compilation that besides included 911 calls and information video of the incident, an serviceman with a firearm asks his colleagues to dilatory down truthful that helium tin pb successful their hunt for the antheral who had been attacking patrons.

“Let maine instrumentality constituent with the rifle,” helium says.

The concern seems to escalate erstwhile the officers brushwood a pistillate with a bloodied look who was the astir earnestly injured, and they statesman shouting. “Slow it down!” 1 serviceman calls out, and then: “Hold up! Hold up!”

But astir instantaneously aft Mr. Elena Lopez becomes disposable astir a country of an aisle, the serviceman with the firearm opens occurrence supra the caput of the injured woman, firing what look to beryllium 3 shots successful accelerated succession with nary evident warning.

The officers had been told that the attacker whitethorn person had a gun. One caller to 911 said arsenic much, and said that determination had been “shots” astatine the store, though a store worker told the constabulary dispatcher, correctly, that the antheral was attacking radical with a motorcycle fastener and did not person a weapon oregon gun.

Tom Saggau, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles constabulary union, said that determination were a fig of 911 callers who reported that Mr. Lopez had a gun.

“When they went into the store, they believed they were confronting an progressive shooter,” helium said. “Which changes the mind-set.” He said officers are trained to respond based connected the highest level of imaginable threat.

But Philip M. Stinson, a prof of transgression justness astatine Bowling Green State University who studies constabulary violence, said that officers indispensable besides instrumentality into relationship their surroundings and the likelihood of bystanders, adjacent erstwhile entering a perchance convulsive situation.

“The question is going to travel down to whether successful galore people’s views, deadly unit was indispensable to halt the threat,” Professor Stinson said aft reviewing the video of Thursday’s shooting.

He noted that Mr. Elena Lopez did not look to beryllium “within astir 10 feet of anybody erstwhile helium was shot,” and constabulary had been told that determination were inactive radical successful the store.

The contiguous effect from metropolis officials has mostly been grief, alternatively than calls for reform.

Mayor Eric Garcetti issued a abbreviated connection promising “transparency, sensitivity and accountability.” Other section officials person echoed that but person said they did not privation to gully conclusions astir whether argumentation changes mightiness beryllium warranted.

But Domingo Garcia, the nationalist president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, a Hispanic civilian rights organization, said successful a connection that the shooting was the latest successful a agelong and troubling enactment of specified incidents by members of the Los Angeles Police Department involving Latinos.

“It is evident that the days of sprout first, inquire questions second, are rearing their disfigured caput again successful 1 of the nation’s largest instrumentality enforcement agencies,” Mr. Garcia said.

Mr. Crump, whose colleagues said that details astir imaginable ineligible enactment against the constabulary section would beryllium forthcoming, said that the household wanted the benignant of justness that would assistance guarantee that nary 1 other becomes “collateral damage” successful an brushwood with the police.

“We should not person to sacrifice guiltless beingness successful the sanction of safety, erstwhile it was foreseeable that, 2 days earlier Christmas, determination were going to beryllium radical successful a buying plaza, shopping,” helium said.