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LOS ANGELES () — The Los Angeles police officer who opened fire inside a North Hollywood store, killing a 14-year-old girl, testified Thursday in a civil trial against the police department and city.
The family of Valentina Orellana-Peralta is suing for wrongful death. Back in 2021, she was in a dressing room with her mother when Officer William Doresy Jones, Jr. opened fire on a man who had just assaulted someone with a bike lock inside a Burlington store.
On the trial’s second day of testimony, Jones took the stand inside an Los Angeles Superior courtroom in Burbank.
He was the officer who fired the rounds that killed the teenager two days before Christmas.
A civil trial is underway over an LAPD officer’s fatal shooting of a 14-year-old girl in a Burlington store in North Hollywood.
One of his bullets pierced the dressing room wall and killed Orellana-Peralta.
Police had responded to reports of a man attacking shoppers with a bike lock. Moments later, Jones fired three rounds from a rifle, one of which pierced the dressing room behind the suspect and killed Orellana-Peralta. The suspect also died.
“You don’t bring an AR-15 to a bike lock fight,” said Nick Rowley, the family’s attorney.
That’s the central argument from the family’s legal team, which calls the shooting preventable. They accuse the department of negligence and a lack of proper training and supervision.
While on the stand, Jones defended his actions and described the chaotic and rapidly evolving scene. He had previously testified he thought it was an active shooter situation.
“Based on the totality of everything, the information I gathered at the scene, I believed it could arise to the situation where deadly force may have to be used,” Jones testified.
Attorneys for the victim’s family claim Officer Jones knew it was not an active shooter situation and ignored it.
“There was a senior officer on deck that said we have a suspect with shorts on the second floor with a bike lock. I mean… that was the information his own superior gave him. He chose to ignore that. He chose to ignore other cues, and that’s why we’re in the situation we’re in,” said Haythan Faraj.
Inside the courtroom during opening statements, jurors watched body camera video capturing the tense moments leading up to the deadly shooting.
The lawsuit details the final moments of Orellana-Peralta as her mother held her dying daughter in her arms. The family is seeking $100 million in damages.
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